Green packaging for the sustainably-minded consumer
Today’s health-conscious consumers are not only keen on eating right, they are equally attentive to the packaging of their food. This is why many manufacturers and brand owners are putting greater focus on the sustainability of their products. Polyethylene Terephthalate or PET is a recyclable plastic commonly used to make the containers that hold the water, sodas, juices, cosmetics and pharmaceutical products found in almost every household. It is lightweight yet strong and flexible.
RETAL is one of the largest PET preform manufacturers in Europe and central Asia with sights set on international expansion. “RETAL produces packaging solutions for companies all over the world in the food and beverage industry for water, carbonated beverages, juice, milk, as well as for cosmetics and household goods,” Andrew Huestis, public relations director, RETAL said. “We produce screw caps, also called closures, as well as preforms, which are tube-like pieces of plastic that are blown, using a process called stretch blow molding, into a PET container.” In addition to producing standard preforms from its extensive range, which vary in neck finish, weight, color and shape, RETAL also manufactures custom preforms tailored to individual customer requirements. “The packaging industry is driven by sustainability and time to market as well as by innovation because customers want distinctive packaging. We strive to excel in all three,” Huestis said.
Innovative, lightweight designs
RETAL’s customers are many of the world’s leading brands that have a long history with the company. “These top brands have very high expectations, which I believe we meet because we provide high quality products at a competitive price,” Huestis said. “Because consumers choose brands that provide them with healthy and sustainable products, these brands in turn come to us to develop environmentally friendly solutions for their packaging needs. We also need to be innovative because our customers want to differentiate their products on the store shelf to attract consumers. This is why design is very important in our industry; we work closely with our customers who rely on our expertise and technology to help them develop attractive and lightweight containers and closures for their products.”
“Indeed, a major business driver in today’s competitive packaging market is to deliver high quality products at a lower cost,” Anton Sugoniaev, beverage packaging expert, RETAL R&D said. “Therefore, bottles must be lightweight, which reduces our customers’ costs because less plastic is used to produce the bottles. However, bottles also need to be sturdy and stable to withstand heavy loads when stacked during transportation and storage. By optimizing the preform, we can attain bottle performance similar to that obtained using a heavier preform.”
Accelerating responsiveness
To satisfy its numerous challenges, RETAL adopted the 3DEXPERIENCE® platform with its seamlessly integrated applications CATIA for design and SIMULIA for analysis and digital simulation. “RAND Finland, a Dassault Systèmes business partner, introduced us to the 3DEXPERIENCE platform and helped us evaluate the best possible solution for our needs,” Huestis said. “RAND also implemented the 3DEXPERIENCE platform and provided initial training for our designers to bring them up to speed.”
The 3DEXPERIENCE platform helps us design and simulate the best package. We can rapidly come up with many different alternatives that customers can visualize in a digital environment before choosing the best one for physical prototyping.
Andrew Huestis, PR Director, RETAL
RETAL leverages the design application CATIA to digitally develop and propose various container designs to its customers. This provides time savings by avoiding reiteration loops and reduces expenses by limiting the use of physical prototypes.
“CATIA helps us design the best package because we can rapidly come up with many different alternatives that customers can visualize in a digital environment before choosing the best one for physical prototyping,” Sugoniaev said.
“With CATIA it’s easy to apply specific attributes to the product under development, like changing the wall thickness. When we are working on caps we can play with the knurling pattern and apply changes rapidly. The knurling pattern is a certain arrangement of side ribs designed to assure convenient grip for consumers during opening as well as robust torque transmission during automated capping,” he explained.
“With respect to bottles we can play with diameters, modify a label position, change the decoration, and in the end we obtain various bottle designs, which are later selected according to their performance. In the past we worked with OEMs to produce drawings or to create prototypes, to see what the product would look like. This was always a time-consuming process. With the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, the design team can quickly deliver high-quality solutions in a digital environment. In this way, we rely less on physical prototyping and can even launch a product straight into production based only on its digital model,” Sugoniaev said.
Designers often use reverse engineering to improve bottle designs done by a third party.
“I usually start with a 3D file, which can be obtained by scanning a bottle with our 3D scanner,” Andzejus Buinovskis, design engineer at RETAL said. “Once I have a 3D file, I import it into CATIA, and create as many sections of the bottle as I need. Otherwise, I would need to cut the actual bottle to obtain these samples, which would be deformed in the process. I can then redesign the bottle and create a surface model for simulation with the SIMULIA application to see how I can improve the preform and engage in light-weighting to make it lighter.”
“It is very important, in this case, to know how much material we save. So, we model the geometry and calculate the weight of the preform with CATIA, and apply the necessary design changes. Once validated, we generate the drawings and send them to our customer for production. Without the possibility to reverse engineer the bottle with the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, I would need a laboratory full of equipment to obtain the same results."
RETAL is a global developer and manufacturer of packaging solutions.
- Products: PET preforms, closures, packaging films
- Employees: 2,800
- Revenue: €820 million
- Headquarters: Limassol, Cyprus
- For more information www.retalgroup.com
