A strong contingent of BBI members recently travelled to the Britvic Soft Drinks factory at Leeds and all were well rewarded with an extremely interesting visit which included a tour of the site. Over the past months the factory has undertaken some major changes in terms of Facilities and Culture.

The visit was hosted by Nigel Wordsworth, General Manager for the Northern Region. Nigel explained that the site was originally built as a Canada Dry factory with returnable glass lines. It now has three glass lines and one bag-in-box line and has responsibility for production of Britvic Juices and Carbonates, Pepsi and J20 in glass as well as Tango and 7Up on the bag in box line. The site produces over 11m cases p.a.

The latest Britvic/Procomac turnkey project has resulted in the conversion of two lines from returnable glass to non returnable, and to fill bottle sizes ranging from 125ml to 330ml. Filling, capping, labeling, and tray and shrinkwrap facilities are similar on each of the two non returnable lines. Line speeds are 600 b.p.m. There is also a facility to de-palletise bulk glass into the plant and the in-line palletisers combine with flexible stretchwrapping systems allowing pallets of finished product to be conveyed into an 8,000 pallet capacity warehouse. This project also resulted in removal of bottle washers and pasteurising equipment releasing space that can be used for future developments.

Leeds Bottling Hall

The other glass line handles returnable glass specifically for the licensed trade and fills both carbonate and juice in bottle sizes of 113ml and 180ml.
The bag in box line has also been a success for the site. It was commissioned in June 1999 and now runs at full capacity and produces 1m litres of syrup per week.

Leeds factory has embarked on an interesting change programme entitled the 5s’s which expands to Sort, Set, Shine, Standardise and Sustain.
Sort, get ready, prepare.- Set, where things should be, organise.- Shine, cleaning, smart looking.-Standardise, with process and procedures in place.-Sustain, embedded culture, a way to work. This is a team based involving process, includes everyone on site, and is led by a 5s steering group; it produces clear strategies with aims and stepped targets and is changing site culture in order to obtain the higher productivity levels required in the competitive Soft Drinks market.

Another recent success is a project to reduce waste, and material losses are now down to 0.53% generating saving of £200,000 p.a. and carried out by factory teams making fact based decisions. Priorities were set out by defining wastage by line against material value by line. Considering this is a Factory operating mainly with returnable and non returnable glass this is no mean achievement.

Safety has a high priority on site mainly due to the enhanced risks of handling glass. A year on year accident reduction of 5% is being achieved by risk assessments, safety audits and sharing best practice. This has resulted in a cultural change towards safety by everyone at the factory and Safe Behaviour Visits are used as a practice and measure towards driving down the accident rate.

Leeds Conveying Equipment

BBI members thoroughly enjoyed this top class visit. The Factory looked impressive, "everything in its place", and team motivation was very evident on our tour. On behalf of the BBI Brian Gibbs thanked Nigel and his team for their presentations, which described the sites' progress, philosophy and culture, and for the interesting tour and hospitality. The Factory team are to be complimented on their change programme and their achievements and progress which were very apparent throughout the visit.

Visit Britvic website
http://www.britvic.com

Brian Gibbs