2
Luciano Zanin is a man you can't fail to noticeA big man
often serious, but with a genuine friendliness that soon
1
f breaks throughA man with prestige as wellfor he's ans
ace at his job. For 32 years he has been working in our brewery
in Pedavena (Italy), where he is currently head of theTechnical
Maintenance Department. In that job he has every
opportunity to make use of his inborn talent: inventing.
Help from colleagues
Can-emptying machine
Small is big
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A BRIGHT SPARK
Cheerful Luciano Zanin becomes serious and immediately engrossed as soon as you
show him something technical.
4 An idea is born from sketches like these. A
The teeth of the can-emptying machine: these contain tubes through which air is
forced into the cans.
found a way of cutting openings in the
bottom of the sparging tun without
using heat..."
Lots of small inventions soon turned
out to be very importantWe asked this
natural talent - he was 16 when he first
came to work for us and has learnt
everything from practice - how he set
about thinking up new ideas all the
time.
"I make a sketch of a new idea on a
scrap of paper. Then I put it away and
forget about itbecause if you followed
it through you might be completely on
the wrong trackThen I think of other,
completely different systems for
solving the same problem. My
colleagues help me to work out the
details. For instance Orlando Pontin,
who does a lot of drawing for me. I'm
not good at that. And my boss, Egidio
Sartor, lets me get on with it. That's
very important as well", he says with a
twinkle in his eyes. "I'd not be able to
manage it all on my own", he admits
honestly.
"Then I sit at home and close my eyes
and sec one of my sketches before me
And then suddenly I know that it's
going to work." All we can do in our
amazement is give a nod of
understanding. It's just a gesture of
habit, for it's all quite beyond us. But
we did know that we'd been talking to
an employee with a special talent. And
thanks to the help of his colleagues and
his boss he is able to put that talent to
good use
Many machines have been improved
by him, some have even been his
brainchild. His innovations have not
always stayed within the company. Our
Swedish supplier of the case-packer
which ensures that bottles are packed
into cartons was pleased to adopt one
improvement thought up by him.
Our Pedavena brewery is proud of the
machine that stands in its bottling
department and is able to empty 24
cans in about ten seconds. Yes, that's
right: the cans are not filled, but
emptied! Let us explain.
Sometimes a filling machine doesn't
work properly and the result is that the
cans are only half-filled. As everyone
will understand, those cans then have
to be emptied. It's very time-
consuming if someone has to empty
them one by one. Which is why
Luciano Zanin's invention is such a
blessing.
His machine contains twenty-four
The machine that can empty 24 cans in about 11 seconds and Luciano Zanin, its
designer.
vertical steel spikes which pierce the
cans. Then the cans drain empty.
What's so bright about that? Well,
inside each spike there is a thin tube
through which air is forced into the
can. The air presses the beer out in a
few seconds. The machine was
constructed by our technicians and
incorporates lots~of engineering
novelties.
Bottles have to be emptied, too. At the
moment a prototype machine is almost
ready which can be used to empty six
full crates at the same time. For those
interested in technical details: the crate
is slid into a metal tray which is then
rotated by 45°.The liquid starts to drain
very slowly from the bottles. A little
later the crate is turned by 45° again,
and so on. This prevents the liquid
from coming out in fits and starts,
which it would if the air could not get
into the bottle fast enough. In that
caseemptying would take a lot longer.
An old labelling machine is used to
drive this invention.
Yes, you're right: before you can empty
the bottles you have to take off the
crown corks. You can buy special
machines to do this. Luciano Zanin
wasn't very happy about those
machines, nor were his colleagues in
the bottling department. So he's made
a device that takes all the crown corks
off the bottles in one operation without
problems. "No breakages and fail
safe" as he himself says. Though so far
he's only operated the device by hand
on single bottles.
We asked Luciano Zanin if he also
made lots of small improvements. He
had to think about it for a minute.
"Well, one example is my invention
that allows the filling machine for
normal casks to be used to fill 10 litre
kegs as well. That saves us having to
buy a separate installation. And then I
