Dedicated service team pays dividends for CBPA

A Sydney-based milk and beverage contract packaging company has boosted its plant operational efficiency from 75% to more than 90%, and has doubled its overall output, in months.

Contract Beverage Packaging of Australia turned over its packaging line maintenance, in 2008, to Tetra Pak, which originally installed its equipment 13 years earlier.

Tetra Pak posted dedicated service technicians on site at the CBPA Taren Point plant, which manufactures So Natural and Australia’s Own brand UHT soy beverages and milk products and packs private label UHT milk for Australian retailers.

Within three months, packaging line efficiency at CBPA hit 90% and has remained there since.

“Before, we had to take whatever technical support was available, now we have dedicated Tetra Pak people on site who understand our products and the machines very well,” General Manager Amine Haddad says.

Tetra Pak’s on-site technicians are now very much part of the team.

“We have doubled our effective output from the same machines. Now we can focus on the processing side, on product development for the future. It just makes good business sense for us to have this agreement,” says Haddad.

When the service agreement started, work immediately began to bring CBPA’s two 15-year-old Tetra Brik Aseptic TBA/8 UHT filling machines up to current specifications.

“Right now (April 2010) we are installing a new box packer and, since the service agreement began, we have installed a new capper and the latest pull-tab unit - for opening devices that are the best available,” says Tetra Pak Oceania’s Technical Operations Manager, Tony Barnes.