Over the past few years, Britvic has heavily invested in modernising its supply chain to ensure productivity and make it fit to support the growing demand for soft drinks.
The company’s digital manufacturing programme in partnership with LineView, a manufacturing efficiency software company, has systemically reduced manufacturing losses, demonstrating a clear return on investment, and enabling cost-effective production with increased capacity. He also highlights how the initiative empowered the team to identify and implement further improvements, supporting the company’s culture of continuous improvement.
In the ever-evolving landscape of soft drink manufacturing, Britvic always strive to stay ahead of the curve. From 2016 to 2020 the company invested over £250m in the modernisation of its supply chain assets and then a further £160m since then in both more infrastructure and systems. This forms part of an overall technology investment roadmap to transform the business and supply chain operations as Britvic work to improve productivity and ensure the company is fit to supply the growing demand for soft drinks.
In order to meet these goals, the operations project team worked with LineView to implement the following changes to Britvic’s Rugby, Beckton and Leeds sites:
- Energy monitoring: Britvic installed meters to view the energy usage of gas, electricity, water and steam. The data is collected and used to support usage reduction projects, helping to save manufacturing costs and support environmental efforts to reduce energy usage.
- Condition based monitoring: Britvic added sensors to key parts of machines to alert the team of early signs of machine failures. The team can then react and put the machines into downtime, so that smaller repairs can be made quickly and effectively in advance of costly, time-consuming, and energy inefficient breakdowns.
- Real-time monitoring: The company now use live data to provide instant insights on the overall equipment effectiveness of our machines. This data can then be used to understand production line performance, enabling improvements to be made where necessary.
These solutions were initially implemented on nine lines in thecRugby factory and, due to the success of the project, have been extended to six lines in Beckton and five lines in Leeds.
With so many changes happening at these sites, it was important to upskill Britvic’s team members quickly and efficiently so they could accurately use these initiatives to their full potential. The company worked with LineView to execute a comprehensive two-week training programme for the controls engineering teams. Piloted at the Rugby site and led by both LineView employees and Britvic’s own Operations Project Team, this course was delivered to Britvic engineering team members.
“This successfully provided them with the necessary skills and knowledge to identify and implement line balance opportunities across the business, focusing on improving control, accumulation, speed, start-up and run-out times across can lines,” said Nigel Paine, Supply Chain Director at Britvic.
The training programme offered an opportunity for employees to understand how LineView’s software worked and understand why it was valuable to the Britvic manufacturing process. Crucially, it also equipped them with the confidence to take ownership of the process moving forwards, so the efforts at improving productivity can continue in the long-term.
“While the project remains in its early stages, we have already seen an immediate capacity increase and reduced the impact of minor stoppages on our production lines,” Nigel added. For example, through the implementation of condition-based monitoring on lines, the company has reduced preventative maintenance time by 42,000 minutes – saving over £20,000 in man hours.
Elsewhere, when nitrogen gas metering went live at Rugby in August 2023, Britvic were able to investigate a difference in gas usage between two of the lines, which identified a faulty valve seal. As a result, the team were able to quickly fix the problem.
Overall, this project has systematically reduced losses made during manufacturing processes, allowing teams to produce the same amount of product for less cost and less energy. Nigel continued: “This has generated a remarkable return on our investment and enabled lasting transformations, notably increasing opportunity for production capacity at our Rugby, Beckton and Leeds sites.”
For example, through the use of the data, Britvic has seen a nine per cent increase in performance on one of the lines in Rugby, equating to around an extra two million produced cases in the last six months. Recently, another performance project completed on five of the canning lines in Rugby created a 2.1% overall equipment effectiveness improvement with another three per cent opportunity identified.
“Not only is this improved performance enhancing productivity and saving on costs, but it also supports our ambitions to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050, as we look for ways to reduce our emissions and improve our energy efficiency. These systems are helping us save on both water and energy usage,” Nigel added.
Overall, the initiative has demonstrated a clear return on investment, while also ensuring long-term success by empowering the team to identify and implement further solutions, supporting the culture of continuous improvement to better both the business and environment.
