Project Overview

Our team delivered the complete dismantling, seaworthy packaging and international relocation of a full PET blow-fill soft-drinks line from a UK beverage manufacturer to a beverage producer in Argentina. Our scope covered survey, disconnection, export packing and load-out, with the team accountable from the first isolation on site through to the final section loaded for sea freight.

The line

A blow-fill line of this type is a chain of large process units, not a single machine. The scope took in a blow moulding station, a filler, a carbonator, several tunnel sections, a hopper, a set of lift and tippers, and the main control and panel cabinets. Every item was surveyed and measured on site, so the packing plan was built around the real equipment rather than catalogue figures.

The oversized challenge

The defining feature of this project was size. The largest sections of the line are too big for a standard shipping container. The blow moulding section alone runs over five metres across, and the filler and carbonator will not fit a standard box either.

That took the work out of straight containerisation and into breakbulk and flat-rack loading, where the packing and load-out have to be engineered rather than improvised. We packed the oversized sections onto purpose-built pallets and crates in HT-treated timber, sized to the transport, with the lift and securing method set out for each one before it moved. The hopper was broken down to travel, and two of the lift and tippers were combined into a single packed unit to make the loaded footprint work.

Delivery

Vertex was the single point of accountability across the whole scope. Our management team provided all labour and supervision, coordinated the heavy lift and access equipment, disconnected and dismantled the line, and packaged everything to export standard ready for loading. We positioned and loaded each item to the weights and dimensions measured on site.

Where we add value

On an international move, a line passes through several hands: the site it leaves, the freight forwarder carrying it, and the buyer's team receiving it. Vertex sits in the middle of that as one accountable point of contact for the equipment itself.

The same team surveyed, packed and loaded the line, so there was continuity from the first site visit to the last section on the trailer. Instead of the removal, the packing and the load-out being three separate conversations, they were one scope, run by one team, answering to one plan. On a shipment this size, that continuity is what keeps the physical works moving and gives everyone downstream a single, straight answer on the kit.

Outcome

The full line was dismantled, packed to export standard and loaded for shipment to Argentina, with the final section loaded on completion of the scope. The producer took delivery of a line crated and secured to travel and ready to reassemble at the new site.