Britvic - Our Approach to Innovation
Britvic Soft Drinks is a company that has a reputation for new product development with such products as J20 and Fruit Shoot the company has been at the forefront of the Soft Drinks Market.
David Gardner opened his presentation by defining Technical Innovation as “Bringing inspired ideas to life” and with the Inspiration of ideas process you need to Dream it, Share it, Plan it, Deliver it.
David stated that the Britvic Process is designed to “Lead the organisation in implementing an innovation & activity process that enables us to grow value.”
David also stressed the need for an annual strategy plan to ensure commercial and marketing alignment to agreed activity timings with cross business input. The activity process needs to be designed to enable people to deliver success with clear goals, with teams taking responsibility.
David described the Britvic activity process as a stage and gate system.
Stage1. Build a business case
Stage2. Shaping, optimising & validation
Stage3. Finalise go to market plan
Stage4. Launch, nurture & evaluate
Project Teams need to: Create business cases; Inspire people; Communicate; Be bold; Be brave; and inspire stakeholder hearts and minds.
The final point that David made in his presentation was a description of the lessons learnt from the Innovation process so far, and proceeded to share ten key learning points including; having an annual plan; delivery of technical packages; and having a project management model.
We were most certainly given an insight into the culture of innovation within the Britvic organisation.

Lean Manufacturing at Britvic
Chris opened his presentation by describing the circumstances for embarking upon a Lean Manufacturing programme which commenced in 2006. There was a need to counteract rising input costs, a need to reduce waste, and, with static line performances and benchmarking activities areas of improvement were identified.
Their desired state is to be a World Leader in Soft Drinks Manufacturing by 2012 with a zero loss mentality and with high performance teams.
Chris described their values as:
1. Driving Results through Team Work.
A proactive self managing Team that works together, delivering results through effective communication and flexible working, having ownership and having pride in all that we do.
2. Building Capability.
Sharing best practice through coaching, training & development and encouraging creativity in a supportive environment.
3. Respect Others and Succeed Together.
Relationships built on honesty and trust, and develop a winning mentality to achieve our goal.
4. Successfully Leading a Winning Team.
Line managers who are role models, and support individuals, recognising and rewarding superior achievements.
5. Quality, Safety & Environment.
Striving for excellence, by achieving right first time quality products in an environment where safety is our priority.
The final result is to bring about “A Self-Explaining, Self-Ordering, Self-Regulating, Self-Improving Workplace where what is Supposed to happen does happen-On Time – Every Time.”
On conclusion of his presentation Chris explained that excellent results are being achieved. The site is attaining higher levels of customer service, cost per case has been reduced, plant reliability has improved with a lower frequency of accidents and reduced wastage.

Beckton Factory
Prior to our tour of the plant Cecil Everson, Manufacturing Manager, gave us a very informative presentation on the Beckton Facilities.
Beckton Factory was built in 1972 and now produces Soft Drinks only in PET Bottles. There are four production lines filling bottle sizes between 0.25 litre to 2 litre at speeds between 16,000 bph to 48,000 bph. The site employs 100 people and has a capability of 30 m. cases per annum. Cecil also explained how some of the Lean Manufacturing Principles were being applied at the workplace. These principles were broken down to specific Objectives, Measures and Actions all of which are clearly identified and part of the working culture.
On our tour of the plant we were able to see Lean Manufacturing principles in action during a demonstration by one of the line team members. The four production lines are laid out in pairs, back to back, to allow two lines to be run by one line team. There is a modern automated Syrup manufacturing facility and a large Warehouse, capacity 5,000 pallets, in which the palletisers are sited as well as a separate Dolly loading facility. There is also an on site bottle blowing Factory Unit with three Sidel and two SIG Corpoplast bottle blowing machines. They each have a maximum output capacity of up to 22,820 bph.

Our Thanks
On conclusion of the visit Brian Gibbs, BBI Visits Coordinator, on behalf of BBI members thanked Chris, David and Cecil for their very interesting presentations and also for the tour and buffet lunch. Brian also congratulated our hosts on the results being achieved in terms of delivering new products as well as the enhanced plant performance. The factory was seen to be operating to high standards; it was very clean with "everything in its place". Such visits are great help to the B.B.I and our member’s expectations for the visit were well exceeded, it was a good learning opportunity and the support given by Britvic Soft Drinks to the BBI is very much appreciated.

Visit Britvic Website www.britvic.com/

Brian Gibbs