Bucher Emhart Glass has unveiled its first BIS machine at an open house event hosted by Nampak in South Africa. BIS is the latest addition to Bucher Emhart Glass' range of IS machines, and the first new machine type since NIS was introduced in 2000. Like NIS, it is designed to handle a variety of containers, sizes and weights, in smaller quantities, and with quicker job changes. BIS uses the parallel mould open/close technology pioneered on Bucher Emhart's AIS machines and is available in six-, eight-, ten- and twelve-section configurations. The first machine handles double- and is prepared for triple-gob 95mm productions. A quad-gob 70mm version is under development. BIS was announced at Glasstec 2010 and successfully prototyped in 2011 at the Emhart Glass Research Centre in Windsor, USA, before the first 12 section 140mm DG was manufactured and sold to Nampak Glass, South Africa. In May 2013, the world's first BIS machine was started up successfully. Six months later, over 20 Bucher Emhart Glass customers made the trip to Nampak's plant to see the world's first BIS machine in operation. The company has already sold its third BIS unit. Allied Glass produces speciality spirits containers and decided to invest in a new BIS machine to help with its high-end quality requirements and frequent job changes.
