Global brewing company SABMiller has developed a bottle crown that reduces the crown thickness to 0.17mm from a typical thickness of 0.22mm to 0.24mm. This thickness change of 50 microns reduces the standard crown weight from 2.38g to 2.14g, corresponding to a 360g reduction on every pallet. Although this may not seem like a significant reduction, SABMiller uses 42 billion steel caps a year. If implemented globally, this change will reduce raw material costs by more than $12 million. The technical challenge involved avoiding springback, which could have lead to leakage and improper sealing.

http://www.sabmiller.com/index.asp?pageid=149&newsid=1638

Danny Schaeffler
Engineering Quality Solutions, Inc. … http://www.EQSgroup.com
4M Partners, LLC … http://www.Learning4M.com