With the memorable theme song opening of “shlemiel, SCHLEMAZEL!, Hasenpfeffer Incorporated,” TV’s “Laverne and Shirley,” closes with the two friends “doing it their way” on the bottling line of Milwaukee’s fictitious Shotz Brewery. Although manufacturing facilities’ beer-capping lines have changed, speed, ease-of-use and flexibility are paramount for today’s processing automation equipment.
With myriad SKUs and new technologies, including improvements to clean-in-place (CIP) systems, beverage manufacturers are moving from batch processes to continuous mix processes, reducing the size or eliminating the need for finished product storage tanks, according to John F. Butts, controls engineer at SMB Machinery LLC, Ball Ground, Ga.