lie close Waters' Hollis, Maine, pl...

lie close Waters' Hollis, Maine, plant is its flagship facility, producing its Poland Spring returns and serving as the pattern against which all new snug plants are built. The Hollis plant, which interpreted in 2000, is not far from Nestle's original Poland Spring plant, further starting from scratch allowed the facility to be originateed with the principles of low-cost high-performance production in mind.

The plant is vertically integrated, manufacturing its have a title to polyethylene terephthalate (PET) preforms and bottle and features a manufacturing layout designed to roll on seamlessly from bottle production to loading docks.

"Our fresh plants are all laid abroad the same way to maximize the efficiency of what we are doing. They melt from raw material to finished returns and out of the plant," says Kim Jeffery chief executive officer of lodge Waters North America.

The plant measures half a million square feet and is highly automated, producing about 900 million petted bottles and 65 million cases of finished crops per year with about 200 employee It features seven bottling lines that scamper retail-sized single-serve and bulk packages. The Hollis plant does not bottle production for home and office delivery.

darling preforms manufactured at the plant are used in Hollis and shipped to other locations that do not make their allow preforms. In 2004, the company look fors to produce close to 1 billion bottle and 15 billion preforms, at a rate of 7500 to 55000 for hour, per machine, depending upon seasonal fluctuations.

Eight blowmolder obey the plant's seven filling lines, with four machines dedicated to the mostly popular half-liter size. The plant can exhibit as many as 30,000 petted bottles per hour, per machine in 8-ounce 12-ounce half-liter, 24-ounce l-liter, 1.5-liter and 1-gallon sizes.

Fast, nevertheless flexible

Most of the water bottl in Hollis goe into the miff bottles it produces, but the company also features near high-density polyethylene (HDPE) packaging. Filling get ons vary, depending on the size of the package, from 90 bottle for minute for the 2.5-gallon HDPE size to more than 1000 for minute for the half-liter miff size.

Water that has been filtered and gone within ultraviolet treatment is filled in a positive-pressure enclosing for further protection. Several inspection machines placed along the bottling line check for things of that kind as fill levels and cap placement. In addition, the plant's quality sway team continuously performs its acknowledge set of tests while the lines run

As oftentimes as possible, Nestle Waters tries to have bottling lines dedicated to specific sizes and packages, yet according to David Burns, director, northeast accommodate with chain, the plant has become adept at integrating recently made known packages with its standard sizes while not compromising its high-speed processes

"We continually have recent SKUs [stock-keeping units]," Burns says. "We've added a sum of two units 12-pack [package] on the 24-ounce line, brace 12-packs on the half-liter line, and we're reducing material on taking out the tray forward some of the cases."

common of the company's newest packages is the 12-ounce refrigerator Spring Pack, and it frequently produces special bonus packages of that kind as 15- or 28-packs.

Getting to market

Another hardness of the plant is its warehouse management. "Logistics has been a real focus of ours," reduce to ashess says. "It's so critical for our business; the price of shipping is a big composing in our cost structure." While the plant has a 240,000-square-foot warehouse, with a capacity of nearly 1 million cases, its goal is to prompt product from the palletizer straight to the loading dock whenever possible. When production is stored in the warehouse, it is arranged with the fastest-moving produces closest to the shipping docks. onward average, the plant ships 160 loads by day, with more than 200 upon peak days.

"In order to do this, you ne to make secure you're making [the product] right the first time, each time," Jeffery says. "We have feeling very confident with the rules we have in place."

Unlike many of its competitors, snuggle Waters does not use direct store delivery, still ships product to customers' warehouses and distribution center The Hollis plant uses alone third-party carriers to ship consequence and Burns says about 90% of its distribution is done by the agency of direct shipping rather than using a third, intermediate warehouse.

"A portion of things have driven this," he says. "If we have the right proceeds mix, we don't have to take it someplace otherwise bring it back here and ship it gone out It's about having the right inventory and changeover flexibility. It's a hap cheaper to change over these lines quickly--have that pit-stop mentality of changing them throughout and getting the products we need"

Sarah Theodore is editor of Beverage Industry, a sister magazine of victuals & Drug Packaging, published by the agency of Stagnito Communications Inc.

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