Purchasing packaging equipment is a decision that will impact a winery’s operations for the next 10 to 20 years — the life expectancy of most packaging machinery. In the 1990s, empty bottles arrived at wineries in cases for manual unloading and placement on the filling line. Converting to bulk bottles and depalletizing machinery increased automation levels and reduced costs throughout the industry.  Beth Zarnick‑Duffy Area Sales Manager / Clevertech North America, Inc. “A big reason wineries changed from manual to automated depalletizing of bottles was to increase production efficiency while improving worker safety and reducing labor costs,” explains Beth Zarnick-Duffy, who worked on many of these conversions. “Wineries continued to automate because finding and retaining qualified workers became even more difficult in the past few years. Companies also began factoring COVID-19’s negative impacts on the workplace into their decisions about w

Reverse taper bottles can present a depalletizing challenge because their smaller base configuration causes instability during transfer. A-B-C's Model 108RT, depalletizer with proprietary features maintain bottle stability for reverse taper bottles during high speed transfer from the pallet and throughout single filing. These features include devices that square and secure the top pallet layer and also the secondary layer prior to container transfer, and maintain the slipsheet firmly as the top layer is swept from the pallet to the loading table. In addition, each product load is kept under control on all four sides from the pallet throughout the depalletizing process, to contain the bottles in a tight pack, which enhances stability. Bottles are single filed with a conveyor designed to gently “pull” them from the pack and guide them to the line conveyor. Picture frames and slipsheets are automatically removed, separated and stacked. The depalletizer’s compact desi