and brown
bottles
New
machine
sorts out
green
Each year millions of green and brown bottles glide along the
conveyor belts inside the breweries in Athens, Thessaloniki
and Patras. And all those bottles have to be sorted by shape and
colour. Until recently that was done by hand. But an ingenious
sorting machine has now taken over this job.
Camera
HEINEKEN INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE NR. 26
PAGE 5
Giant £1 Aguila stand
at Barcelona trade fair
The EI Aguila stand is built up of
modules which which can also be
used separately.
With a stand covering an area of
as much as 250 square metres, El
Aguila was present last month at
Europe's second biggest trade fair,
the 'Alimentaria' in Barcelona. In
more than twelve pavilions over
2,500 businesses from the foods
and drinks sector displayed their
wares to a quarter of a million visi
tors!
The enormous El Aguila stand
was specially designed for the 'Ali
mentaria' exhibition. But that
doesn't mean that the whole thing
will be thrown away now that the
trade fair has ended. Its designers
made sure that the stand can be
used again in a smaller form at
other trade fairs.
It was the third time that El
Aguila had taken part in the 'Ali
mentaria'. This year's stand was
bigger than ever and had a choice
location: close to the exhibition en
trance and along the route leading
to four pavilions which always at
tract throngs of people.
The representatives manning the
stand maintained contacts with ex
isting customers and tried to win
new customers. El Aguila salesmen
from various parts of Spain had
also invited their business relations
to drop in and see them at the 'Ali
mentaria' in Barcelona. During the
six-day fair the El Aguila stand re-
0v corded a total of as many as 12,000
visitors.
Most wanted to sample the Aguila
brand.
then move past a camera. This
camera records the type and colour
of each bottle as it passes and,
when a green bottle is identified,
the computer transmits a signal to a
machine which is fitted with
brushes. These brushes give the
green bottles 'the push', side-track
ing them to a different conveyor
belt.
The machine in Athens still has
a few teething troubles, but Mr
Schermers is so far pleased with the
performance of the sorter: 'We've
already improved the line efficien
cy by 10% and that's certainly a
lot'.
Athenian Brewery sells both
Amstel and Heineken in various
pack forms, including the 50-cl bot
tle. This size of bottle is very popu
lar in Greece. Amstel beer is sold in
the brown 'Euro' bottle, Heineken
has its own green bottle. For years
brewery workers have been strug
gling with the problem of the re
turned empties; Heineken and
Amstel bottles are not always
sorted before being sent back. 'At
the moment it's even so bad that
some 30 per cent of all incoming
returnables are unsorted', explains
technical manager F. Schermers. In
other words: an increasingly heavy
workload for the employees who
had to sort the bottles.
to a machine
which gives the
green bottles the
'brush-off.
In recent years Athe
nian Brewery was
faced more and
more often with the
labour-intensive
sorting of green and
brown bottles.
After consulting HTB, Athenian
Brewery decided to buy a machine
which automatically sorts out the
different types of bottles. The
ssaloniki was the first brewery to
install the sorter. Athens and Pa
tras followed later. The sorter oper
ates in an ingenious way: all bottles
are put on a conveyor belt and they
A computer-con
trolled machine,
with a built-in cam
era, monitors each
bottle and emits a
signal
