A Semi-Automatic Bottle Filling System Designed for Sri Lankan Beverage Sector

Abstract

Fruit Juice Manufacturing is one of the most prominent segments within the beverage sector of Sri Lanka. Usually, filling process of fruit juice requires critical controls under strict hygienic conditions and other critical parameters to ensure the quality of the product. Local beverage manufacturers try to achieve these perfect conditions by investing large sums of money in complex machineries. They tend to make investments even without conducting a feasibility study and cost benefit analysis. Such investments will cause losses to the company. Therefore, this project aims to design a semi-automatic bottle filling device operating with all hygienic conditions and other operating parameters. Major objectives of the project were to minimize the required labour force for processing line, to increase the efficiency of filling process, and to develop a device which is having the flexibility to use bottles with different shapes and volumes. Based on these requirements, a final decision was made to design a Semi-Automatic Filling System, which is capable of filling a nectar bottle within 6 seconds. The significance of this system is that, a single person can deliver a production capacity of 1200 bottles/hour (190 ml and 200 ml bottles). Further, when using 500 ml bottles and 1000 ml bottles, it can deliver a production capacity of 400 bottles/hour and 200 bottles/hour, respectively. As per the observations prior to the design stage, it was found that a skilled person can process 250 to 400 bottles/hour (190 ml, and 200 ml bottles), manually. Therefore, with the proposed system, there will be a comparable increase in production capacity. According to the cost calculations done prior to the design process proves that this project will lead to an increase in the efficiency of production process, while saving on manual labour related expenditure. The proposed system can be further improved by combining both the filling and capping processes, so that the overall efficiency of the process can be further increased.