“Our Tampa lube oil filling line is installed in a state-of-the-art facility where we develope sustainable lubricating oils for its customers. These are engine oils, which provide outstanding fuel efficiency and also perform very well from an ecological point of view.
After overcoming various development obstacles, production at PURAGLOBE’s Tampa facility has finally got underway. In addition to advanced blending and high-speed bottling capabilities, the Tampa facility is also a logistics hub from where PURAGLOBE can blend and package engine oils for its customers and deliver them by ship, train or truck throughout Central and North America”.
This text, taken from the website of our client Puraglobe, explains well why we were happy to be chosen as the company’s technological partner. Such a state-of-the-art product and facility needed an equally advanced lube oil filling line.
We therefore created a wonderful project for a filling line of 24,000 bottles per hour. The containers in question have a 1 litre capacity and are made of moulded plastic (HDPE).
The one installed at Puraglobe is a complete lube oil filling line, ranging from the depalletizing robot to the palletizing robot and which includes all the other machines such as a self-adhesive labelling machine, monobloc with 48-valve “weight” filler and capper, and a wraparound case packer from our company PKS, as well as conveyors and other checking and marking devices.
CFT lube oil filling line composition
There are essentially four leading machines in this lube oil filling line:
Automatic depalletizer robot for empty containers
The key component of the CFT 803 range of machines is the gripping head, which can vary from project to project. The rails on the four sides tighten around the layer of empty containers, lift it off the pallet and place it on an acetal resin accumulation and alignment conveyor. The same head can take the cardboard interlayer sheet that is between the layers of the containers and place it in a specific warehouse. The same operation is carried out with the empty pallet which will be deposited in its dedicated warehouse, once the containers have all been depalletized.
Weight filler for lubricating oil
“Weightech L” is a weight filling machine specifically designed for filling lubricating oil. Its main features are:
- Different weighing algorithms allow maximum precision to be achieved in any condition
- Possibility of continuing production by excluding a specific valve in case of failure of said valve or of a weigh cell
- High reliability and low maintenance costs
All the electronic components are standard commercial components and are located in an easy access point at the top of the machine, in ventilated areas with the possibility of air conditioning for working at high temperatures.
The filling is done with a technology similar to that shown in this slow-motion video:
Wraparound case packer, designed for 1-liter bottle format
This machine, designed and built by our company PKS, is mainly comprised of a steel frame with highly durable coating, with sliding doors in the same finish and transparent polycarbonate to reduce noise and provide easy access and visibility to the machine at all times.
Its main characteristics are:
- Compact design that applies the most advanced and reliable technology available
- Use of the highest quality electrical and electronic components
- Easy and quick format changes, without need for adjustments
- Their simplicity, accessibility, and operator-friendly interface make them extremely easy to use with few necessary interventions in production. This greatly improves performance averages
- These case packers are designed to be connected to a centralized network for management and processing of production data
Automatic palletizing robot for cartons
The CFT 802 is an automatic system specifically manufactured for palletizing layers, with a 4-axis articulated robot. Its main features are:
- Loading and unloading basket in “Carbon Fibre” layers, therefore very rigid but lightweight, allowing greater production speed.
- Teflon components to prevent wear of internal cables as they pass through the joints
- High resolution and absolute position encoder
- Lubrication points easily accessible for maintenance
- Safety guards around the machine, complying with EC standards
Lube oil market perspectives*
This ambitious project confirms that CFT Group is a reference player in the international market of filling lines for lubricating oil and other chemical products, with systems installed for all the largest multinationals in the sector.
The size of the lubricants market was estimated to be over 35 million tonnes in 2020 and it is expected that the market will record a CAGR of less than 2{46ec2a3493715af7728c32a403f8e2e213c1486a2b6674762cf12f27ee9af20a} during the 2021-2026 period.
The global automotive industry has been heavily impacted by the COVID-19 crisis, both in manufacturing and car sales that have suddenly come to a standstill in almost every region of the world. These work stoppages have led to a loss in the production of millions of vehicles around the world. According to the OICA, automotive production fell by around 23{46ec2a3493715af7728c32a403f8e2e213c1486a2b6674762cf12f27ee9af20a} in the first nine months of 2020 compared to the same period in 2019. This negatively impacted the demand for lubricants in 2020.
In the short term, an important factor that will drive this market is the growing demand for high performance lubricants (thanks to improved properties such as limited flammability, reduced gear wear and longer service life).
Engine oil, like the one that is the subject of this article, has dominated the market and is predicted to grow in the next 5 years, as it is widely used to lubricate internal combustion engines. Finally, it should be noted, the growing importance that bio-lubricants are acquiring in industry, a factor that will increasingly represent a business opportunity in the near future.
*source: mordorintelligence.com
The CFT Team for this project:
- Iller Ibatici – Sales Area Manager
- Guido Licini – Sales Area Manager
- Marcello Monica – Packaging PM Engineer