Decreases Material Usage for Can Manufacturers

Nordson equipment and systems continue to be the industry standard for 2 piece inside spray, because of its accuracy, durability, and high level of performance.

Nordson’s products are made to deliver increased productivity to manufacturers of metal packaging. This may be in terms of better quality, better manufacturing efficiency, less downtime, less coating material consumption, faster line speeds, or combinations of these and other factors that enable canmakers to produce a better product at a lower cost.

A typical example of Nordson’s impact on the inside spray process is from a recent installation at a major 2 piece can manufacturing plant. This plant manufactures 12 oz aluminum beer and beverage containers and uses dual gun spray machines. 

A fully-integrated Nordson inside spray system was installed to replace the existing equipment.

This new system consisted of the following Nordson products:

• MEG-IIrc spray guns • Spray Pressure Control System
• iTrax Spray Controllers (timer & driver)
• iTrax Spray Monitor
• EP-II Pumping System
• Temperature Control System

Installing the above resulted in greater accuracy and repeatability (which means less variability) in the overall system, along with the capability to automatically monitor the spray equipment’s performance for each and every can sprayed. As such, the plant was able to do the following:

• Reduce spray pressure to 600 psi and use the same pressure for all categories.
• Reduce the spin speed of the cans from approximately 2400 rpm to 2000 rpm.
• Reduce the number of categories from 4 to 3, eliminating one change-over step. Using the same pressure for the 3 categories also reduced change-over time and provided more consistency.
• Reduce film weight requirements in each category.

By using Nordson’s Best Practices and implementing the above-mentioned changes, this plant saved over $550,000 in coating material costs in one year. In addition, there were significant reductions in scrap and HFIs. This was especially significant with the Category C (& former D) cans, which previously had more frequent quality problems. In fact, the improved quality and greater productivity helped the plant to increase their revenue generated from this category and contributed towards growth in their business.

And although they were making more cans, and more cans in the higher weight category, they were able to reduce their overall lacquer consumption by 4-8%. The bottom line: the return on their investment was well beyond their target value and each year contributes incremental productivity and profit to their operation.