Indonesia: Bali Hai Brewery invests in new canning line to meet growing demand for beer

A growing market for beer has led Bali Hai Brewery Indonesia to install a new canning line, accommodating a higher production capacity while securing the quality of their premium beers, fnbnews.com reported on February 26.

Designed and supplied by Sidel, the line runs at up to 33,000 cans per hour for the 330ml format, twice as fast as the former one, and features a very compact layout, thus overcoming the Indonesian brewer’s space constraints.

As the country’s leading independent brewery, Bali Hai Brewery Indonesia has been developing and distributing a distinctive range of beer brands for the national and international markets since 1975.

“Currently our products are sold in more than twenty countries, including Russia, Singapore, Thailand, Japan, Korea and New Zealand, as well as different regions of Africa. While capturing the opportunities offered by a consumer demand that is continuously increasing, we are committed to maintaining the consistent taste and quality of our beers,” said Daniel To, technical director, Bali Hai.

With a domestic market share of 3.2 per cent in 2018, the family-owned company is the fourth largest domestic brewery and the first one behind global brands, offering a portfolio that speaks to the consumers’ increasing preference for local as well as premium beer brands.

These include Bali Hai Premium, Draft Beer, El Diablo Original and Panther Black. Regardless of the strong Indonesian regulations to control alcoholic drink consumption, the beer segment in the country is showing a very positive trajectory: it is set to register a seven per cent total volume CAGR to reach 324 million litre by 2023.

To keep up with this growth, Bali Hai decided to invest in a large-scale project and in doing so opted to partner with Sidel for the very first time.

The journey started when Bali Hai undertook a major renovation and automation of their brewhouse and cellar area in 2013, when many processes were still performed by manual labour.

As part of their investments in the past few years, they also decided to upgrade their canning line, managing 330ml and 500ml formats, to fit their needs for higher efficiency.

This is where Sidel stepped in with their expertise in line design and engineering, deriving from their long-standing heritage in complete solutions for beer.
The leading Indonesian player was offered a layout and equipment choice perfectly accommodating their needs for secured quality, while opening doors to additional capacities and being prepared for future challenges.

“The floor space available at our plant is limited; therefore, we needed a very compact solution that did not compromise on efficiency and flexibility,” said To.

The project started with the search for the right location within the site, always considering the need for additional capacity.

“Despite the fact that we were initially planning a line delivering 24,000 cans per hour (cph) for the 500ml format, we eventually trusted Sidel’s engineers and went for a complete line that is able to reach up to 29,000 cph, thus securing high capacity production for the coming years,” To said.

There were a number of important reasons for the Indonesian brewer to put their confidence for such a large-scale revamping in Sidel.

“First and foremost we appreciated the local service support as well as the time that the team took to understand and analyse our requirements. Thanks to their highly competent and responsive engineers, the installation of the line was completed in a short period of time,” said To.

At the moment, Bali Hai has the possibility to run the new canning line in three shifts, while the old one only allowed for a maximum of two.

Proven filling and pasteurising systems for full control of beer quality
The Sidel complete canning line includes 13 different machines, laid out in six larger production modules: the de-palletiser, the filler and seamer, the pasteuriser, the dryers, the shrink-wrapper and the tray shrink-wrapper, plus conveying systems.

Bali Hai’s goal of protecting beer quality was mainly achieved through the integration of two specific solutions in the line - the latest Sidel volumetric electronic filler for cans and the proven PAMA pasteuriser.

When explaining the rationale behind the choice of the filler, Blegog Sugiono, packaging manager, Bali Hai, said, “We opted for this Sidel filling technology largely because of the very low total oxygen pick-up it ensures, which ultimately leads to high product quality. Plus, we now use a volumetric technology, so as to guarantee that our cans all have the intended quantity of product when reaching the shelf.” This way, there is no risk of product waste.

The installed PAMA pasteuriser, which features Sidel’s unique Prince Plus software, for ideal control of the Pasteurisation Unit (PU), was specifically tailored around Bali Hai’s requirements.

“We decided to install this system to have a constant level of quality and consistent taste across our beers. Specifically, we have been able to further cool down the can temperature at the outfeed of the pasteuriser, therefore eliminating the risk of unstable quality we have experienced in the past. With the latest technology from Sidel, we can now narrowly adjust and control the PU in accordance with the specified settings for a fully controlled beer taste,” said Sugiono.

On top of that, by maximising the size of the pasteuriser, Bali Hai can now also welcome future production increases.

Flexible and compact end-of-line solution to handle a wide variety of SKUs
In fact, the new canning line runs twice as fast as the brewer’s old line. As a result, the output became three times bigger, growing from 500 to 1,450 trays per hour. With two different can formats (330ml and 500ml), nine different recipes and various secondary packaging options, the number of SKUs (stock-keeping units) handled by Bali Hai’s canning line lies at 18. This required a high level of flexibility at the secondary packaging stage, yet with no compromises on an optimised footprint.

In addition, the leading Indonesian brewery decided to shift from RSC cases to film for economic benefits and installed Sidel EvoFilm Access, a seamless shrink-wrapping solution for low- to medium-speed applications.

They also wanted to be able to widen the secondary packaging solutions offered to their customers, including multipacks.

Sugiono said, “With the new line, we have a sophisticated tray and film solution that we can apply to produce various packing alternatives; for example, four- or six-packs wrapped on one tray containing a total of 24 cans, run on one solution. If multipacks are not requested, products can bypass the tray and film packer directly to the shrink-wrapping system.”

With a modular design concept allowing for a broad array of configurations and options, EvoFilm Access offers expanded flexibility.

“We added some tailor-made options to fit Bali Hai’s needs,” said Stéphane Séné, key account manager, Sidel.

“First, a design to cost approach has been applied to deliver the best quality-price-performance ratio available on the market for shrink-wrapping at speeds of up to 60 cycles per minute. Secondly, we implemented a simple conveying solution to feed the shrink-wrapper: this way, the customer was able to save some factory floor space, now dedicated to warehouse purposes,” he added.

Séné said, “In addition, we removed the need for a divider by orienting the lanes of cans differently. The customer is therefore able to manage eight pack configurations more easily and efficiently. For greater versatility, the system can manage both packs and lose cans.”

The ease of operations brought by Sidel’s end-of-line solution became instantly clear when, after its integration, no specific training of the customers’ operators was required.

“By operating Sidel solutions in our brewery, we expect to fulfill the market demands, whilst providing excellent quality products. We are very satisfied with the performance of the recently installed complete line. Overall, we believe the best beer is produced by the most qualified people and packaged with the best machinery – and for that Sidel is the solution,” To said.

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