Coca-Cola

National Geographic goes into Coca-Cola company to reveal how to make this classic beverage which quenches our thirsty desire as well as replenish our energy. Let's see the top secret Coca-Cola Syrup, which is classified, in the world. This episode features on how to manufacture three types of containers.

1. PET (Plastic) Bottle 2. Aluminum Can 3. Glass Bottle


Automatically plant. How efficient !!
Operation Management:
1.Introduction 2.Forecasting 3. System Design 4.Quality 5.Inventory Management and scheduling 6. Supply Chain Management 7.Project Management 8.Waiting Lines and Simulation.
Vertical Integration:
From raw material (PET, aluminium, glass), manufacturing, send to Coca-Cola company.

Despite Coca-Cola is worldwide distribution, the company itself made the primarily one thing.

Highly condensed syrup. The beverage concentrate. This is the top secret. So the Coca-Cola won't say exactly where they made the concentrate. Those things which come from the nature consist of many different source plants. They don't actually what they are.

Natural Flavors. What's the "Natural Flavors" ?????? No one knows about it.

Natural Flavors is where the money is.

Baton rogue in Louisiana

Operations Management.
This picture illustration was chosen because the stream symbolizes the flow of work through a system. It is like the river which needed to be designed as smoothly as possible. An important goal  for operations system is to achieve a smooth flow of work through the system.

The first job is to transform the concentrate into the finished soft drink by diluting it with water
 then adding them with the sugar and carbonation.

The drink made of 90% water, so the water is important ingredient. Water can be different depending on the source.

Sugar

Sugar Test

Assay the beverage

Examination and determination as characteristics of Coca-Cola. Three types of containers. Plastic bottle, Aluminium Can, Glass Bottle.

PET Bottle. Polyethylene terephthalate. Polyester.

Plastic raw material



In the hopper, you can the PET. This is the only time that PET is visible during the manufacturing process.



Pre-Form

 Pre-Form. Injection Molding

Injection Molding Machine
 






Hot Runner System.

The pictures was chosen from Wikipedia. From the picture, you can understand the hot runner roughly.

Molding Part



Mold Core

Look like the test tube.

Support latch which used to carry the pre-form through the blowing process. Support latch is critical factor which determines whether is a bottle or piece of chaos.







The Pre-Form is too hot to inflate.



240 degrees F.

From the picture, understand the injection blow molding roughly. The following pictures will show how it work.

Injection Blow Molding

Stainless Steel Mold.

Coca-Cola logo.







Bolt it on the machine.




Water cooling mold

Blue for cool water

Red for hot water

The heated pre-form is loaded.



The metal rod will drop down.

Note that the metal rod had been dropped down

Low pressure air expanded the pre-form

High pressure air blasted the pre-form into the edge of the mold.

Pop out. The edge of the mold is ice-cold, because the chilly water has been circulated around the mold.

Every bottle was taken the picture by computer.



And then the bottle was analyzed by the computer.



The journey just begins !!

The system is powered by the air.

The air conveyor moves bottles faster than conventional conveyor.











Depalletize













Note that the outer conveyor is faster than the inner so that bottles can be putted into the single file. Consider about tank track. If you want to turn left, the left track is slower than the right. The front side of bottles is the like the tank, and then the front side turns left.

Ingenious Design.









Tape













The journey of PET bottle is finished.

Can













Refer to: 
Lamborghini: Forged wheels
Ricardo: Forged piston



The can needed the lubricant to be cut through the die.

It is the same process as manufacturing the piston. The sulfuric acid can remove the oil residue of the can during the forged process. Refer to: BBC Ricardo Engine.

























This machine makes sure every can is filled with the content.

Before package cans into cardboard, they needed to be warm up to the ambient temperature.









Classic Glass Bottle

Cullet



















No matter what technologies the future breaks. There is one thing that probably won't change. For over hundred years, the Formula of Coca-Cola has been the closest guarded commercial secret.

[Highlights]
Injection Blow Molding

[Questions]