Indonesia’s 4th largest brewer Bali Hai uses Sidel for its new compact canning line

Although Indonesia is a majority muslim country, the consumption of beer is growing rapidly at 7% annually. Bali Hai Brewery, the country’s 4th largest brewer with 3.2% share of the market, is employing Sidel for its new ‘compact’ canning line which can run up to 33,000 cans per hour, twice as fast as its previous line, and yet within the brewer’s space constraint.
Daniel To, Technical Director at Bali Hai said, “Our products are now sold in more than 20 countries other than Indonesia. While capturing the opportunitues offered by a consumer demand that is continuously increasing, we are committed to maintaining the consistent taste and quality of our beers.” Bali Hai now produces local and premium brands that include Bali Hai Premium, Draft Beer, El Diablo Original and Panther Black.
To keep up with strong domestic and international growth, Bali Hai decided to invest in a large-scale project and opted to partner with Sidel for the very first time.
The journey started when Bali Hai undertook a major renovation and automation of their brewhouse and cellar area in 2013, when many processes were still performed by manual labour. As part of their investments in the past few years, they also decided to upgrade their canning line, managing 330ml and 500ml formats, to fit their needs for higher efficiency. This is where Sidel stepped in with their expertise in line design and engineering, deriving from their long-standing heritage in complete solutions for beer. The leading Indonesian player was offered a layout and equipment choice perfectly accommodating their needs for secured quality, while opening doors to additional capacities and being prepared for future challenges.
Daniel said, “The floor space available at our plant is limited; therefore, we needed a very compact solution that did not compromise on efficiency and flexibility.” This is where Sidel came in to offer a complete line which have the capacity of 29,000 cans per hour, higher than its initial plan of 24,000 cans, thereby opening up future expansion possibilities. Sidel also offers strong local service support from their highly competent engineers.
The Sidel complete canning line includes 13 different machines, laid out in 6 larger production modules: the de-palletiser, the filler and seamer, the pasteuriser, the dryers, the shrink-wrapper and the tray shrink-wrapper, plus conveying systems. Bali Hai’s goal of protecting beer quality was mainly achieved through the integration of 2 specific solutions in the line: the latest Sidel volumetric electronic filler for cans and the proven PAMA pasteuriser. Blegog Sugiono, Packaging Manager at Bali Hai said, “We opted for this Sidel filling technology largely because of the very low total oxygen pick-up it ensures, which ultimately leads to high product quality and consistent taste. Plus, we now use a volumetric technology, so as to guarantee that our cans all have the intended quantity of product when reaching the shelf. This way, there is no risk of product waste.”
The installed PAMA pasteuriser, which features Sidel’s unique PRINCE Plus software, for ideal control of the Pasteurisation Unit (PU), was specifically tailored around Bali Hai’s requirements.
The new canning line also runs twice as fast as the brewer’s old line. As a result, the output became 3 times bigger, growing from 500 to 1,450 trays per hour. With 2 different can formats (330 ml and 500 ml), 9 different recipes and various secondary packaging options, the number of SKUs handled by Bali Hai’s canning line lies at 18. This required a high level of flexibility at the secondary packaging stage, yet with no compromises on an optimised footprint.
In addition, the leading Indonesian brewery decided to shift from RSC cases to film for cost benefits and installed Sidel EvoFilm® Access, a seamless shrink-wrapping solution for low to medium speed applications. It also wanted to be able to widen the secondary packaging solutions offered to its customers, including multipacks. Sidel has also offered a simple conveying solution to feed the shrink-wrapper whereby Bali Hai can save some factory floor space, which is now dedicated to warehousing. The system can also now flexibly and easily manage both packs and lose cans.
Daniel concluded, “Overall, we believe the best beer is produced by the most qualified people and packaged with the best machinery – and for that Sidel is the solution.”