Britvic takes Castrol Advantage for bottling lines

For the past five years Britvic Soft Drinks has used Castrol to manage lubrication and condition monitoring at its canning plant in Rugby, creating one of the largest UK Castrol Advantage sites

For the past five years leading soft drinks company, Britvic Soft Drinks has used Castrol to manage lubrication and condition monitoring at its canning plant in Rugby, creating one of the largest Castrol Advantage sites in the UK.

Adding a second bottling line (line 5) will significantly extend the Castrol involvement as Paul Schulha explains.

The completion in May 2004 of a second bottling line at the Britvic Soft Drinks plant in Rugby, is the latest phase in the relationship with Castrol, whose site-wide contract includes the provision of lubrication management and condition monitoring.

The new line, which blows, fills and packages thousands of 500ml PET bottles a day in various configurations for brands such as Tango and Pepsi, will initially produce three bottle styles with the option of others at a later date by changing the blower moulds.

Lubrication management and condition monitoring for the line (an extension of the Castrol Advantage programme already operating on the three existing canning lines and the 2-litre bottling line) will focus on the bottle blowing, labelling and palletising machines supplied by SIG Alpha, SIG Corpoplast and Simmonazzi, and filling and packaging machines supplied by KHS Kisters.

All machine manufacturers included Castrol food-grade greases and lubricants as first-fill on the equipment supplied to Britvic.

Assessing the impact of the new line on the condition monitoring programme, Britvic Technical Planning Team Leader Huw Davies says that base data provided should prove invaluable in establishing the optimum operational efficiency of the new machines and the line itself.

Commenting on the importance of condition monitoring, Paul Schulha for Castrol says in an ideal world machines would never break down, the production line would never stop and an engineer's life would be a lot easier - but life isn't as simple as that.

Which is why industry has for years placed great emphasis on the ability to remedy problems quickly in order to minimise lost production.

However, there is now another school of thought that says it's more efficient to prevent failures happening in the first place.

This vision of 'predictive maintenance' is one that Castrol has been instrumental in developing as an extension of its Castrol Advantage offer, which has been adopted with considerable success by Britvic, one of the largest Castrol UK food and beverage clients.

Many of the country's favourite soft drinks are produced at the Britvic Rugby plant, with the four existing production lines producing a staggering 720 million cans per year - almost 2 million every day.

The new line will add a further 36000 bottles per hour to the total, making Rugby one of Europe's most productive bottling plants.

It's no surprise then that reliability is paramount for such a production-intensive operation, and tight schedules mean that lost production is difficult to recoup.

Against this background Britvic management had identified lubrication as one of the factors most likely to have an impact on reliability, so the brief to the Castrol team was simple - 'design a lubrication management service that will keep our machines running at all times'.

The first step was to benchmark existing practices at the plant against which its service could be measured, and then establish Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that would set the targets for on-going improvements.

The most visible difference in the working partnership is that a single Castrol engineer, based permanently on-site, has taken over the lubricating and monitoring of machines, a role that was previously filled by three Britvic engineers.

A major part of the predictive maintenance programme involves the ongoing analysis of every machine in the plant, to ensure that wear levels are accurately monitored and action taken to prevent breakdowns.

Bearing wear is tracked constantly using vibration analysis and shock pulse monitoring.

The cumulative effect of this analysis can be assessed from the 44% reduction in conveyor bearing changes within the plant - down from 114 to just 64 in the first year and now averages just over 30 per year.

Examination of individual gearboxes and their oil consumption led Castrol to recommend its high performance lubricants as a replacement for the grades used previously.

Since the changeover, gearbox oil levels have been maintained without topping-up, which has reduced premature unit failure and considerably extended life expectancy and reliability.

Also, before Castrol Advantage, oil changes at the site were necessary every three to six months.

Following the introduction of Castrol lubricants, oil changes are now required only once every four years.

Castrol has also demonstrated its ability to improve reliability at the Britvic plant through process and procedural improvements.

By improving the chain of communication for example, hydraulic oil leaks are now more easily detected and swiftly remedied, which has led to a dramatic reduction in fluid consumption.

Castrol trials have also paved the way for the successful conversion of filler assemblies to food grade lubricants.

In addition, and in response to a Britvic brief to improve waste lubricant storage, Castrol recommended the storage of drums in a safe bunded area to prevent leakage.

Castrol on-site engineer Keith Bloor is now responsible for maintaining the area in a safe condition, monitoring waste oil levels and arranging removal when required.

This has led to reductions in the volumes/consumption of greases, oils and hydraulic fluid used by 85%, 80% and 75% respectively.

Summarising the attractions of Castrol Advantage to companies such as Britvic, Paul Schulha says it is not a fixed service, but is tailored to the needs of each customer.

Other benefits lie in the working partnership and the way the customer's expertise works in tandem with the unparalleled Castrol experience in lubrication management worldwide.

As Huw Davies points out: "The shared expertise of Castrol and Britvic engineers has allowed us to maintain world class standards of reliability throughout our plant, and improve still further the service we offer to customers".

Leaving the customer's engineers and operators free to concentrate on core activities is a cornerstone of Castrol lubrication management and condition monitoring service.

When linked to other benefits such as optimised efficiency, ongoing cost reduction through continuous process improvements, strict budgetary control, and significant input into total productive maintenance and ISO14001 compliance, the service certainly lives up to its name - Castrol Advantage.

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