Italian company Pneumofore has installed a vacuum system at Siam's Rojana plant in Thailand. The vacuum system, used in glas forming, has helped reduce the weight of bottles from 145g to 140g and means Siam Glass can produce 21,600 more bottles each day. The company runs three plants in Thailand, making energy drink bottles of variying size. The challenge for Pneumofore was to reduce the container thickness and decrease the rejection rate of 150ml bottles by the use of vacuum. Only one of the three IS lines was modified and configured as a "test bench" for vacuum. The results convinced the management to extend the use of vacuum onto Lines 1 and 3 and it will also become standard at its other two plants. Three UV50 rotary vane vacuum pumps are constantly in operation at the Rojana plant. They ensure the exact vacuum level required on the moulding machines by means of variable speed drives and deliver a higher performance with minor power consumption.
