Coca-Cola Bottler Increases Production with Beach Filters (Food Service)

Like most effective plant maintenance managers, Jim Reichard wanted to increase efficiency and production while decreasing down time for machine maintenance and failure.

As maintenance manager for Mid-Atlantic Coca-Cola Bottling Inc., Reichard wanted to reduce the two hours a day of production downtime, which was costing the company $20,000 per hour plus the waste of 800 gallons of syrup that have to be discarded for every shut down.

Reichard and his team wanted to improve upon their 70 percent efficiency performance rate. Running continuously 24-hours a day, the Alexandria, Virginia plant produces about 320,000 2-liter bottles every day, serving the Mid-Atlantic region. Sales for Coke products in this area have continued to rise, so production efficiency is even more crucial toward meeting the demand.

Most bottlers that have B-N-B (Bag-N-Box) machines, especially those equipped with air logic systems; understand how vital clean, dry air is to the machine’s smooth operation. When Reichard installed Beach Polyclear II® filters, the efficiency improved immediately.

Reichard also selected a Beach F-T20C Polyclear II® unit to filter the air for the new mixing control panel where the syrup, CO2 and water are blended to Coca-Cola’s exacting, secret formula. Beach T-Line filters are high-tech three stage filters for compressed air and gases. They have excellent resistance to synthetic oils, hydrocarbons, solvents, caustics and other chemicals. The Polyclear II® also enables maintenance crews to visually inspect the filter every shift.

Additional Beach F-T20C units were installed at the video jet machines, which print date codes and labels on the plastic bottles.

Efficiency has jumped from 70% to 90% — from two days to two hours per month of down time for routine maintenance. Reichard attributes much of that success to the installation of Beach’s F-T20C Polyclear II® unit.

The superior performance of Beach Filters at the mixing control panel and the date coding operation has Reichard excited about other possibilities for adding Beach Filters. “We are adding one to the new automatic palletizer as well,” he said.

With the opening of the world’s largest Coca-Cola bottling plant in Howard County, Maryland to supply the busy Mid-Atlantic region, Beach Filters will once again be depended upon for clean, dry, compressed air.