Combiblock Plant Layout and Footprint Planning

1. Read a footprint number correctly

Almost every layout argument on a bottling project starts with two people using the word "footprint" to mean different things. Before any area is discussed, separate three figures that are routinely confused:

1. Sobre de máquina. The outline on the general arrangement drawing. It is the smallest of the three and the only one a supplier can state precisely.
2. Operating envelope. The envelope plus the space to open guard doors, withdraw a mould, change format parts, stand at the operator panel and roll a trolley past. Typically the envelope plus one metre on the access sides and considerably more where a mould or a carousel has to come out.
3. Zone allocation. The operating envelope plus the share of aisle, buffer and circulation the machine imposes on the hall. This is the number that decides how big the building must be.

Plan the building from the third figure. A layout drawn from machine envelopes fits on paper and then fails on the first mould change, when there is nowhere to put the mould. As a working rule, add about 30% to the sum of operating envelopes for circulation and maintenance access in the production hall, and check that number against the specific withdrawal directions marked on each foundation drawing.

2. Indicative footprint for a 12,000 BPH PET line

The table below is an estimating tool for a single blow-fill-cap line producing 1.5 L PET still water at 12,000 BPH on a 20-hour day. It is indicative and depends on configuration; use it to size a building enquiry, then replace each line with the real drawing as the specification firms up.

3. The building shell

3.1 Clear height

Five metres clear under any structure over the line is the practical minimum, six to eight metres is comfortable. Height is consumed by preform elevators, by service platforms on the block, by conveyor bridges and by a palletiser lifting a full pallet. Storage areas with racking need their own figure. Height is also the cheapest thing to buy before the steelwork is ordered and the most expensive thing to add afterwards.

Piso 3.2

Three properties matter, in this order. Carga: design against the point loads on each foundation drawing, with a heavier allowance under racking legs and stacked pallets than under the machines themselves. Planitud: within roughly 2 mm under a 2 m straightedge in the machine area, so the block can be levelled without excessive grouting. Curar: a slab poured late and loaded early is a recurring cause of alignment problems, so the concrete programme has to be finished before installation begins, not during it.

3.3 Drenaje

The wet zone — rinser, filler, CIP return, any cooling or washdown — needs trench drains with removable grating and a floor fall toward them of roughly 1:100. Size the drain for a CIP dump plus washdown at the same time, not for a slow trickle. Cutting drainage into a finished slab after the machines are standing on it costs several times what it costs to cast in.

3.4 Getting the machine in

The block arrives in sections and the largest crate decides the door opening, the internal route and the lifting plan. Check crate dimensions and weights against the door, the internal column grid and the floor along the route before shipment. A temporary wall opening is a normal and inexpensive solution when it is planned; it is neither when it is discovered on the day the truck arrives. Sequence detail is in envío, instalación y puesta en marcha.

4. Utility rooms and where to put them

Utility rooms are usually drawn last and regretted first. Four of them have position requirements, not just area requirements.

• Aire comprimido. High-pressure blowing air at 30–40 bar is the largest single energy consumer on a PET line, and pressure drop in a long high-pressure run is paid for continuously. Keep the room close to the block, separate it acoustically, and size it for the air receivers, the dryer and the heat the compressors reject.
• Low-pressure air. A separate 7–8 bar supply serves pneumatics, capping, conveying and packing. Running everything from the high-pressure machine through a regulator wastes energy on every cubic metre.
• Agua helada. Mould cooling needs reliable flow at a stable temperature. Size against the largest bottle and the hottest month, and place the plant so pipe runs are short. Consumption figures are discussed in combiblock energy and utility consumption.
• Tratamiento de aguas. Position it upstream of the hall with its raw and treated water tanks, and give it room for the treatment train the water analysis actually calls for. Scope and area are set by the analysis, not by the line speed — see water treatment for beverage production.
• Electrical room. Dry, ventilated, away from washdown zones, with a planned cable route to the line rather than an improvised one.

5. Size storage from consumption, not from habit

Storage is the largest and most frequently underestimated part of a bottling plant. Do the arithmetic rather than picking a number.

5.1 entrante

A 12,000 BPH line running 20 hours consumes roughly 240,000 preforms and 240,000 closures a day, plus label and film reels. Preforms arrive in octabins holding on the order of 25,000–35,000 units each depending on preform weight, so that is around seven to ten octabins a day. Multiply by your intended days of cover, allow for stacking and forklift aisles, and the inbound store sizes itself. Import lead times and customs variability usually push this figure higher than a domestic supply chain would.

5.2 Saliente

The same line produces roughly 360 m³ of product a day at 1.5 L. Converted to pallets that is several hundred pallet movements daily, and each day of cover is a substantial block of floor at any realistic stacking height. Most plants hold two to five days and dispatch the balance directly, which makes the loading dock and the truck yard part of the storage calculation rather than an afterthought.

6. Flow, zoning and the things auditors check

Two flows have to be drawn separately on the layout, and a third has to be drawn on top of them.

1. Flujo de materiales. Ideally one direction: raw material in at one end, finished goods out at the other. Where the building forces a U shape, keep incoming and outgoing routes physically separated rather than sharing an aisle.
2. Personnel flow. A single controlled entry into the production hall, through changing and hand washing. Not the same door the forklifts use.
3. Hygiene zoning. Higher-care areas around the filler and the closure path, with defined boundaries, appropriate finishes and controlled access. Draw the boundary line on the layout; if it is not on the drawing it will not exist on site.

Two practical additions that are cheap on paper and expensive later: a maintenance workshop and spare parts store within reach of the line, and a laydown area where a mould set or a carousel section can be placed during a changeover. Plants that omit both end up doing maintenance in the aisle.

7. What a combiblock removes from the layout

The layout case for a block is stronger than the machine-envelope comparison suggests, because the deleted items are spread out rather than concentrated.

On a greenfield site this shows up as a smaller building. On a retrofit into leased or existing space it is often the reason the project is feasible at all. The quantified comparison, including manpower and running cost, is in Bloque combinado frente a línea de soplado y llenado separada.

8. Layout sequence, and the mistakes that cost most

Work in this order. Each step constrains the next, and reversing any two of them creates rework:

1. Fix the production plan. Formats, output and operating hours. Everything downstream is sized from this.
2. Commission the water analysis. Treatment scope and its room size follow from it, and it takes weeks to obtain.
3. Select the line configuration and obtain general arrangement and foundation drawings, including withdrawal directions.
4. Calculate storage from consumption and days of cover, including the truck yard.
5. Draw the zones, then the flows, then the utility rooms.
6. Check the shell: clear height, column grid, floor design, drainage, door openings and the route in.
7. Freeze the layout and issue it for civil design, then run civil works in parallel with equipment manufacturing.

The recurring mistakes are consistent across projects: sizing the building from machine envelopes instead of zone allocations; leaving drainage out until the slab is poured; under-sizing the utility rooms so the second line cannot be added; putting a column where the block has to stand; forgetting the mould withdrawal direction; and treating finished goods storage as spare space rather than as a calculated area. Sunswell has supplied repeat-line plants where this planning is visible in the result, including four 12,000 BPH 1.5 L lines for Taza and eight bottling and canning lines for Rauan, both in Kazakhstan. Capacity-driven sizing is covered in Selección de capacidad del bloque combinado, and the wider equipment map in the complete beverage filling equipment guide.

Preguntas frecuentes