IndustryConsumer products

Business challengesNestlé Waters M.T.’s Product Technology Center Water has the following missions:Product and packaging innovation and developmentTechnical expertise and scientific support to the company’s marketsStandards and best practicesTechnical assistance and training to the company’s markets

Keys to successLeverage simulation to select the most optimized bottleOptimize handling and packaging functionsDesigners and engineers work together to create the packaging solution that suits local marketing needs and respects technical production specificationsRapid prototyping of molds, generally within 24 hours

Nestlé Waters M.T. selected NX more than 10 years ago when it wanted a 3D-enabled CAD solution that would promote efficiency and innovation; its CAD team now uses NX and Teamcenter to design and deliver the prototypes of all the company’s bottles of water

Healthy hydration Located near the Vittel and Contrexéville bottling plants in the northeast of France, the Product Technology Center Water (PTC Water) of Nestlé Waters Management & Technology (M.T.) gathers the company’s top experts under a single roof, making it “The Water Research Center of the World.” Here, an international, multidisciplinary team of experts pools their know-how on water, its taste, nutrients and quality, flavored waters, as well as on innovative packaging, packaging materials and Nestlé Waters’ industrial processes.

PTC Water supports the markets and brands of Nestlé Waters, the number-one bottled water company in the world. With its portfolio of more than 60 local brands, 3 international premium brands (San Pellegrino, Aqua Panna and Perrier) and Nestlé Pure Life, the number one bottled water brand in the world, Nestlé Waters,

NX • Teamcenter

www.siemens.com/plm

Nestlé WatersNestlé Waters M.T. designs its bottles using NX, producing over 500 CAD models and manufacturing approximately 110 molds every year

the “Healthy Hydration Company,” oper-ates close to one hundred bottling sites with more than 30,000 employees around the globe.

PTC Water is also part of the Nestlé research community of 29 research, devel-opment and technology facilities world-wide. Nestlé’s research, development and technology network, together with local market application groups, employs over 5,000 people and represents the largest research and development (R&D) network of food companies worldwide.

“At PTC Water, the first goal of our research is to reduce the weight of our packaging, the bottles, to minimize our impact on the environment,” says Klaus

Hartwig, director of the Product Technology Center and head of Nestlé Waters’ R&D department worldwide. “Keep in mind that water is extremely sensitive to external contamination. The slightest trace of milk, coffee or juice in the water will be immediately detected by the con-sumer. Protecting the most sensitive and essential product for life, water, is the foremost role of our bottles.” Thus, Nestlé Waters reduced packaging weight per liter produced by 19 percent between 2005 and 2010, as well as its non-renewable energy consumption per liter produced by 22 percent in its factories during the same period.

“For consumers, an important factor in the water they choose is how easily they can handle the bottles, whatever the consump-tion situation,” says Cédric Boulay, a com-puter-aided design (CAD) engineer who directs rapid prototyping and simulation at Nestlé Waters’ R&D department. “Bottle design must balance the requirements of consumers, the production process, ship-ping logistics, and more. This is why the PTC Water has been equipped with a microfactory, in which it is possible to pro-duce final products at pilot scale. With this tool, we are able to test all new kinds of packaging to meet all requirements, from production to transportation, including storage.”

Moving bottle design in-houseEach of Nestlé Waters’ brands is offered in a range of bottles with different formats. Originally, these were designed using pen-

cil and paper and produced either by an external agency or by bottle suppliers. The lack of confidentiality and reactivity in this process led Nestlé Waters M.T. to integrate the design and mold production processes.

Three people work in the PTC Water design department: Cédric Boulay, Nicolas Dabrowski and Ben Xie. These CAD design-ers are in charge of the bottle, preform designs and prototype mold production. Each of them also has a specialty: Cédric is in charge of finite element analysis (FEA) simulation; Nicolas manages mold produc-tion; and Ben is the structural designer. Their work requires an advanced CAD sys-tem. Nestlé Waters M.T. selected NX™ software from Siemens PLM Software for advanced product development, NX Nastran® software for simulation and Teamcenter® software for digital lifecycle management.

Creating a new bottleAs soon as a request to develop a new bottle is sent to PTC Water, the project managers and the CAD team meet with marketing and factory representatives to set up the basis of the new development and define the main technical constraints. This information is recorded in a “technical brief.” Then the structural designer pro-duces freehand sketches based on the ideas submitted during the meetings. These sketches allow everyone involved in the process to discuss proposals and come up with ideas.

Keys to success (continued)Automated factory for the quick production of bottle prototypes to assess technical performance and provide input to the local marketing representatives

ResultsIn-house mold design team speeds up the development process by delivering prototypes in less than a week, versus six weeks when handled in a traditional wayDuring the development phase, FEA helps choose the best shapes for technical resistance, and photorealistic rendering helps visualize the final products for decision-making. The team produces over 500 CAD models and manufactures approximately 110 molds every year

“Instead of cutting bottle forms in cardboard and putting them together by hand, we use a 3D scanner to capture complex surfaces, then enter that data into NX and transform it.”

Cédric Boulay CAD Engineer Rapid Prototyping and Simulation Nestlé Waters

Some of these ideas are selected for CAD work, and the designer’s sketches are digitized and entered into NX. Cédric or Nicolas then starts to produce the 3D mod-els. The design of the bottle begins with the creation of ribs to ensure vertical resis-tance (essential for the transportation on pallets), followed by the addition of logos, specific engraving, adaptation of the neck, etc.

In some cases, FEA is used to help choose between different bottle design options. Designers use the integrated simulation capabilities of NX with NX Nastran to per-form a nonlinear buckling analysis. This enables them to select the best technical option to meet requirements. The calcu-lations are technically quite complex because PET, the plastic used, is viscoelas-tic, and when stretched during the blow-ing process, produces a gradient of Young’s modulus. In addition, wall thick-nesses of bottles are not easy to predict. Both depend on the transformation pro-cess from the preform to the bottle. The team is working on extending its FEA capa-bilities. This includes introducing new best practices to predict the axial compression of bottles, both empty and full of water,

including the interaction between the fluid and the structure, which is not an easy task.

Ready for moldsOnce a bottle has been accepted in market testing, a prototype mold is manufactured. The rapid prototyping of the mold in resin, mixed with aluminum, is made in a 4-axis milling machine. The samples manufac-tured in this way can be immediately used on one of the blow molding machines (800 bottles per hour) that accept proto-type molds as well as industrial molds. From these molds, real bottles are blown and sent to a lab for inspection and validation.

The goal of this prototyping process is “to speed up the process and keep it confi-dential,” says Klaus Hartwig, who adds that “a tested and approved prototype can be sent into a market within a week.” The industrial molds that are used to produce the PET bottles are manufactured by a subcontractor. Overall, the use of NX has helped reduce the time necessary to pro-duce a mold from six weeks to one week.

© 2012 Siemens Product Lifecycle Management Software Inc. All rights reserved. Siemens and the Siemens logo are registered trademarks of Siemens AG. D-Cubed, Femap, Geolus, GO PLM, I-deas, Insight, JT, NX, Parasolid, Solid Edge, Teamcenter, Tecnomatix and Velocity Series are trademarks or registered trademarks of Siemens Product Lifecycle Management Software Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States and in other countries. Nastran is a registered trademark of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. All other logos, trademarks, registered trademarks or service marks used herein are the property of their respective holders. Z3 27237 3/12 Cwww.siemens.com/plm

Siemens Industry Software

Americas +1 800 498 5351 Europe +44 (0) 1276 702000 Asia-Pacific +852 2230 3333

Solutions/ServicesNX NX Nastran www.siemens.com/nx Teamcenter www.siemens.com/teamcenter

Customer’s primary businessNestlé Waters specializes in bottled water production. The company has more than 30,000 employees and 67 brands of bottled water produced in 36 countries and distributed in 130 worldwide. www.nestle-waters.com

Customer locationVittel France

“We plan to further develop virtual prototyping to test the performance of our packaging through the entire supply chain.”

Klaus Hartwig Director Product Technology Center Nestlé Waters

Teamcenter, keeper of the corporate memoryTeamcenter is installed on a dedicated server and can be accessed from all workstations in PTC Water. Teamcenter is used to store more than ten years of data. The company’s primary goal in using Teamcenter is to manage technical data. More specifically, Teamcenter is used to manage the identification of each CAD model, keep a read-only file of everything that has been validated, and to secure the exchange of files.