Better Beverage Bottling Performance
Encirc Ltd.
About Encirc
Encirc is a market leader in glass container design, manufacturing, bottling and logistics solutions for the UK and Irish food and beverage industries. With almost 1,200 employees, it operates from its purpose-built sites in Derrylin, Co Fermanagh, Northern Ireland and Elton, Cheshire. The company produces more than 2.5 billion glass bottles and other containers annually and has the capacity to fill up to 250 million litres of bulk shipped beverages every year.
Challenge
With Encirc’s ever increasing customer base, one of their prime objectives was to reduce the level of giveaway by automating their weight control, replacing their outdated weight monitoring system. They also wanted to:
- Reduce or eliminate factory floor paperwork for quality checks
- Obtain real time, integrated management information
- Collect and collate information from legacy systems, such as their Krones LDS system, Mecmesin torque meters etc.
- Perform more efficient trend analysis on information from their laboratory equipment such as Anton Paar Alcoholiser, Hach CO2/O2 Analyser, Foss analytical equipment, etc.
- Improve overall visibility, in real time, ultimately leading to improved efficiency.
Solution
The Harford weight control module has allowed Encirc to reduce their overfill to hitherto unobtainable levels, reducing giveaway to a minimum, whilst keeping them totally legally compliant. The introduction of HMIs on the production line, together with computer tablets to collect data from other parts of each line and carry out roving quality audits, has allowed paperwork to be virtually eliminated from the factory floor.
Encirc’s management team now benefit from real time information on their desktops, tablets, and phones, giving them an instant snapshot of the state of production and immediate access to improvement options to further increase and sustain their efficiencies.
On the Harford System:
“Since using the weight control side of the system we have noticed a reduction in our losses. Once we get phase 2 implemented, then we will have full traceability so we can prepare customer reports with just a few clicks of a button.”
On Problems & Support:
“The (Harford) system is constantly evolving…but following upgrades, we often spot something that would improve the way we work still further and request an additional change.”
“Various issues have come along, usually technical niggles, but all the Harford team have been supportive with these and we have worked together to address them.”
“All the Harford team are supportive and most importantly polite and never patronising. We can ask them anything and they never assume any prior knowledge and explain things in a simple, helpful and understanding way. If we can’t wrap our heads around it, then they will come to site. There have been many times when this has been greatly appreciated! One of the best things about dealing with Harford is, as well as their team being professional, knowledgeable and helpful, they are all really, really nice people.”
