A strong contingent of BBI members recently visited the Coca Cola Enterprises’ factory at Edmonton, North East London. Our host for the day was Bill Muirhead, Education Manager.

We were entertained in a modern Education Centre built specifically in 2004 to enable young students to get first hand experience of a factory operation and the manufacture of Soft Drinks from raw materials to distribution. Visiting students have the opportunity to view the factory floor and watch the five production lines filling and packaging a range of products in glass and plastic bottles.

Bill opened the proceedings by giving a very informative presentation firstly describing the Coca Cola Global operation and then the UK operation. We believe the UK Operation’s turnover to be in the region of £2.5bn p.a. with 4,600 employees at 6 Manufacturing Sites supplying 80,000 Customers with 250 million cases of soft drinks p.a.

Bill explained to BBI members the thinking and culture that is driving and challenging the CCE business. They have created a set of actions which are based upon:
• Marketplace
• Environment
• Workplace
• Community
Some example actions/achievements are
• A continued expansion of consumer choice in the market place.
• 100% of manufacturing and distribution sites meet ISO 14001 standard for good environmental management.
• RoSPA Gold Award for a ‘very high standard of health and safety at work’ over four years.
• Enterprise education provided for 12,000 students via Coca-Cola’s three education centres.
Bill also outlined some of the business achievements at Edmonton which are above target and the main successes being attributed to a strong customer focus and individual accountability within a team driven environment.

The operation at Edmonton has five production lines, one glass and four PET. Bottle sizes range from 330ml glass to 3litre PET. The site employs 200 people on a 24/7 operation and fills over 45 million cases p.a. There is also an in house PET bottle manufacturing plant on site consisting of five stretch-and-blow Corpoplast Blomax machines.

On our tour we were able to view all the equipment on site. There is a separate filling hall, linked to the packing hall, with all the standard equipment usually found on soft drinks production lines. There is also a separate bottle blowing area with airveyors feeding the PET fillers. After palletising, and stretch wrapping, finished product is fed by an automatic pallet conveying system into a fully automated warehouse.

The automated warehouse is a new facility, which opened during May 2007 and cost CCE £30m to build. It is able to accommodate 25,200 pallets of finished product and can receive 200 pallets and despatch 300 pallets every hour. The 33 metre high racking system has 12 aisles with automatic feeder cranes and holds 9 days stock.

After our tour of the plant BBI members enjoyed an excellent Q&A session with Darren Knight, Manufacturing Manager, North London Operations. On conclusion of the visit and on behalf of BBI members Brian Gibbs, Visits Coordinator, complimented the site on their success and growth and impressive business results over the past years. Brian also thanked Bill and Darren for providing an excellent visit and a most welcome buffet lunch.

Visit CCE website ....... http://www.cokecce.com

Brian Gibbs