Design process

Consummate synergies for product and bottle are our goal.
And this can be achieved only by uncompromisingly creative ingenuity centred around the self-image of your brand, the advertising concept and the options the PET bottle offers for design creativity.

Our heterogeneous team, comprising designers and engineers, create the ideal bottle, matching the brand image and meeting all the technical requirements involved. In three development stages, the feasibility of the ideas is reviewed and tracked all the way through to testing maturity:

Design brief

• Coordinate objectives and motivation

  Which aspect is more important in bottle design? Outstanding visual appeal or the cost of producing the bottle?

  If you want your product to score in terms of an eye-catching design, then sometimes styling elements will be integrated that may necessitate incorporating more material in the PET blanks.
  Purely cost-driven designs are based on having lightweight preforms, and during the design process are rigorously matched to these stipulations.

   
• Driving factors – basic principles of design work

  What elements are absolutely essential in the design? What design features need to be avoided?

   

Design concept

• Idea development is the top priority

  The design work is based on the design variants and ideas put forward by the client and the Krones design team.

  Associations, visual depictions of your brand, the origin of your product, its image in the advertising concept - these are just a few examples of the connotations we join with you in formulating, so as to develop the right conceptual thinking for your new PET bottle.

   
• Hand-drawn sketches for visualising the ideas

  Formulation of several different concepts within a minimised timeframe, with scope for developing the details.

  From these sketches (which form the foundation for all further design work), we create 2D and 3D views of the design selected. All the stipulations from the stretch blow-moulding process, of course, are incorporated as givens, ensuring that the proposal finally emerging is a practicable one well suited for series production.

   

Design engineering

• Finalising the favoured design concept in 3D

  In the engineering phase, things get firmed up: the choice of preform is the foundation for the best possible visual image of your new bottle, and for optimum processability in the stretch blow-moulding machine.

  The geometry and weight of the preform, plus the planning of the requisite wall thickness, are selected so as to suit the desired bottle with maximised precision. Because it’s not only the bottle’s visual appearance that counts, its role in protecting the product also has to be taken into due account during all design activities.

  After a photo-realistic depiction of the bottle has been created, you can picture the sort of impression your newly conceived bottle will make. Simulation programs are utilised to compute the container’s geometry and the amount of material required.

   
• Is the new design suitable for the entire process involved?

  Area available for labelling the bottle, stability of the base shape during transportation, top-load during pallet stacking – these are just a few of the key considerations.

  With the aid of FEM analysis, all the details of the new PET bottle are meticulously checked. This feasibility analysis serves to verify the data on which the sketches and calculation programs were based, and ensures maximised planning certainty in the further stages of development work.

   

Design validation

• What does the sample of the new bottle look like?

  Construct a sample mould and produce test bottles.

  This is where things take tangible form: with the construction of a sample mould for the Krones Contiform laboratory machine, you’re one step closer to your sample bottles. The bottles produced here in small numbers are intensively tested in laboratory trials. The most important test criteria in this endurance test for the new bottle design are the material and weight distribution of the plastic, the top-loading capacity, the burst pressure, and the thermal stability.

   
• Process adaptation required?

  Laboratory trials reveal the bottle design’s performance capabilities.

  With these data and test results, optimisation steps can still be performed on the bottle design, without a complete set of moulds for your stretch blow-moulding machine being involved. Once the test process has been completed to everyone’s satisfaction, series production of your moulds can begin, and test manufacture of your new bottle in your production facility.

  With this meticulously consultative design process, you can be sure that series production and the market launch of your new bottle design will be quickly up and running – an aspect that plays a crucial role for marketing campaigns as well.