Case histories

25/08/2017

Close to the top of the world, SIPA packs top beers for MACK Ølbryggeri

Deep inside the Arctic Circle, SIPA is helping Norway’s famous brewer Macks Ølbryggeri put the final touches to packages of some of its best-selling beers. Since last year, the world’s northernmost brewery has been putting palletizing, stretch-wrapping and pack conveying equipment from SIPA hard to work, to handle up to 30,000 cans of beer every hour. Headquartered even further north in the coastal city of Tromsø, Mack has been growing ever since it was founded 140 years ago, in 1877, by Ludwig Mack.

Its last major move was five years ago, when it shifted its principal brewing operations from Tromsø to Nordkjosbotn to be able to further increase its capacity and take advantage of the latest technologies. Last year, Mack took delivery of SIPA’s Genius PTF/2 fully automatic palletizer, together with stretch-wrapping and pack conveying equipment.

The Genius PTF/2 is a “steady pallet” unit capable of handling crates, cartons and packs. According to the product to be handled, the standard central unit can be equipped with different heads and accessory elements. Mack is using the unit to palletize 330- and 500-mL beer cans, as well as 330-mL glass bottles; layer transfer is carried out by a roller-type halving platform. “Mack chose SIPA for the robustness of our system,” says Stefano Bonanni, SIPA’s Key Account Manager looking after Mack “as well as for the proven ability of our programmer engineers in optimizing the sequences of the palletizer .”

Bonanni points out that the Genius PTF/2 installed at Mack currently handles two pallet sizes: full –size euro pal 1200 by 800 mm and half-size 600 by 800 mm, which are then loaded onto a full-sized pallet, and can also be configured in future to handle pallets 400 by 800 mm. Bonanni concludes by saying: “There is a lot of competition among suppliers of palletizing equipment, but I believe that our system, together with the technical service and the total partnership package that SIPA provides, makes us stand out from the pack. We look forward to further cooperation with Mack.”