PMT’S 2008 PACKAGING LINE OF THE YEAR
OLD WORLD TRADITION WITH A MODERN, SUSTAINABLE TWIST

A WINE-INDUSTRY LEADER IN SUSTAINABLE PRACTICES, STE. MICHELLE WINE ESTATES MOVED FROM KITTED GLASS TO A JUST-IN-TIME OPERATION AND REDUCED SCRAP RATES, IMPROVED CHANGEOVER TIME, REDUCED THE CARBON FOOTPRINT AND ACHIEVED A PAYBACK IN JUST OVER TWO YEARS.

BY MARIA A. FERRANTE 

The core team responsible for the high speed packaging line installed at the Columbia Crest Winery (from left to right):  Dale Bezona, maintenance manager Wash.; Rob McKinney, director of operations; Mike Perkins, maintenance master craftsman; Blair North, facilities manager; Joe Fraser, VP operations and supply chain; Ashley Vogel, packaging specialist; Kent Harrison, production manager; Caleb Culver, analytical services manager.

Tucked back in Washington State’s Horse Heaven Hills, on the banks of the Columbia River, Columbia Crest Winery, owned and operated by Ste. Michelle Wine Estates, closely resembles an elegant, old world chateau. It’s the last place you would expect to see a high speed, high tech packaging line.

Driving up to the chateau, there’s a beautifully landscaped courtyard, a stucco façade decorated with old-world wrought iron work, charming wood trim and heavy wooden doors reminiscent of times gone by. Stepping through the front entrance, the scent of oak barrels and wine fills the air.

But one floor beneath this vintner’s paradise, on the underground manufacturing floor, there is a world of wine making and wine bottling that puts a new spin on an old world tradition, using modern technology and sustainable practices to bring quality wine from vine to table.

The vision of Ste. Michelle Wine Estates is to be recognized as the premier fine wine company in the world. As the largest wine producer in Washington State, the investment in this high speed packaging line at their Paterson, Wash., winery is a testament to the company’s commitment to quality and excellence, and the reason PMT has named this line the 2008 Packaging Line of the Year.

“We are proud of the ratings and the awards our wines have received, to add to that PMT’s Packaging Line of the Year shows that our commitment to quality goes from the vine to the table,” says Rob McKinney, director of operations at Ste. Michelle.

The packaging line spans 30,000 square feet, in the 1,000,000 plus square foot underground winery. The original bottling line was installed in 2002. “At the time we installed the best technology in filling and case packing. As the company has grown, and the demand has increased, we recognized the need to update the line,” McKinney says. “This has been an evolutionary process for us.”

This award-winning packaging line incorporates a partition inserter, designed in partnership with Wayne Automation based in Norristown, Pa., that places a short shunted partition into a filled case of glass bottles—a first for the wine industry. The team at Ste. Michelle thoughtfully incorporated sustainable practices when designing this line and selecting the packaging materials.

Ste. Michelle also installed a state-of-the-art data tracking system, allowing their employees—from line operators to engineers—to have access to data on the plant floor enabling them to diagnose bottlenecks, detect jams and troubleshoot line stoppages. And the team at Ste. Michelle is not done. They work together daily, with internal employees and outside vendors, to improve the line and increase efficiencies.

Plans for the renovation began over a year before the actual installation. Extensive testing was done to make sure the equipment and new packaging, with the shorter partition, would work.

Demolition on the old line began in November 2007 and the new line was fully operational by mid-January 2008. While a typical payback on a line renovation of this size would be three to five years, the payback on this line is 2.18 years. The internal rate of return (IRR) is 49 percent. “The scrap rate goal for the line was less than 0.4 percent; we are currently at .38 percent. This is above the industry standard,” says Blair North, facilities manager.

The line demolition happened during a tight November through December shut down. The line needed to be up and running by mid-January, with no room for error. “The wine will not wait. When it is ready to be bottled, we need to have the equipment ready to do it,” North says.

The Ste. Michelle team coordinated the installation, and achieved a nearly vertical start-up. “We were making our numbers in less then four weeks,” North says. “And even better, we experienced no injuries in the process. Safety is a priority at the winery. The line meets and exceeds all safety standards—incorporating light curtains, interlocks, lock out tag out, etc.”

It was true teamwork that made this project such as success. “This is a testament to our people. It was all hands on deck to accomplish the task within a small window of opportunity,” McKinney says. “There was no increase in staff with the line renovation and new vendors provided training on all the equipment.”

GETTING IT JUST-IN-TIME

The empty reverse-taper bottles are rinsed, filled and corked on equipment supplied by MBF, S.p.A.

“The main driver for the line renovation was to reduce cost and increase throughput,” McKinney says. “One of the challenges was to ensure the line could run our reverse taper bottle at a sustained speed.” The bottle’s elegant slender shape is less stable at high speeds than other bottles. Once the decision to renovate the line was made, the team at Ste. Michelle continued to look at ways to decrease costs, increase efficiency and reduce the environmental impact of their packaging.

Ste. Michelle’s glass supplier, Saint-Gobain, had been creating “kits” for each case of wine produced. The kits were made up of a partitioned case filled with empty glass bottles. The glass bottles would be removed from the box, cleaned and filled and then placed back into the partitioned container.

These kits would be pre-printed, stored at the glass supplier’s facility and shipped to Ste. Michelle as requested. Each year, Ste. Michelle would need to estimate how much of a particular wine would be produced, and request the specific number of cases. If their production estimates were over, a significant amount of waste was created; if they were under, they would have to pay a premium for a short run of additional cases. This was a costly process. “With the new line in place, we are able to run a more just-in-time operation,” McKinney says.

While the glass supplier urged the winery to find a solution to the re-shipper kits, which was taking up valuable storage space at their facility, the winery sought a way to reduce costs and environmental impact.

To achieve the cost savings and do away with the re-shippers, Ste. Michelle wanted to find a way to move from kitted glass bottles to bulk glass for their reverse taper bottles, pack into empty cases and put the partitions into cases of wine after the filled bottles had already been placed in the box. The Ste. Michelle team and Wayne Automation worked closely together to create a new partition inserter for this process.

The winery runs eight different bottle types in the 750 ml size, and two different types of 1.5 ml bottles, so improvements in changeover was critical to the success of the line, North says.
The partition inserter features a unique t-bar assembly, allowing for quick changeover from six-pack to 12-pack. It now takes 20-30 minutes to changeover the complete line.

To bring about the desired environmental results, Ste. Michelle also worked to cut the size of the partitions in half. The partitions, supplied by Frontier Packaging based in Seattle, Wash., are made from 100 percent recycled paperboard with 40 to 60 percent post consumer recycled (PCR) content. Moving from a full height partition to the new short shunted partition style created significant savings (see Chart below).

Finished glass bottles of wine are moved on a glass conveyor supplied by Fleetwood/Goldco/Wyard.

While the line is sized to run at 350 bottles per minute, it’s currently running around 335 a minute, depending on the bottle. The line produces 27,000 to 30,000 cases per day, operating on two, 12-hour shifts, five days a week. “We produce 4.4 million cases on the line a year,” North says. “By cutting the material in half for the partition alone, the savings are significant.”

To gain additional savings, the partitions are shipped to Ste. Michelle nested, with minimal packaging and no strapping. This special pallet-packing allows more partitions to fit on a pallet. The trays are all labeled with an up arrow to indicate to the operators the correct position of the partitions. The trays carrying the partitions are re-used.

This process reduces material shipments by 100 loads per year, the equivalent of 82,000 pounds of greenhouse gases. The winery also experienced a reduction in glass defects that were caused by loading the glass into boxes as this process was eliminated, North says.

MIXING IT UP

The high speed line is a blend of new and existing equipment. “We sourced the best equipment available for each function on the line,” McKinney says.

The wine packaging begins with bulk glass, coming in on pallets from Saint-Gobain or another glass supplier. The depalletizer from Emmetti USA, LLC based in Tampa, Fla., removes the glass from the pallets and deposits the bottles onto glass conveyors supplied by Fleetwood/Goldco/Wyard in Romeoville, Ill.

Once the bottles are off the pallet, they are conveyed to an MBF, S.p.A., (Italy-based) rinser/filler/corker. After being rinsed, filled and corked, the bottles are inspected for fill height and cork placement quality by an ID Filtec container inspector from Industrial Dynamics Co. Ltd., of Torrace, Calif.

The capsule around the neck of the bottle is applied on equipment from an Italian manufacturer, Robino and Galandrino. Next the bottles are labeled on a Solomatic labeler from KRONES of Franklin, Wis.

Cases are formed on a case erector from Wayne Automation which features push button changeover. Once the cases are formed, an Optipack 3000 case packer, supplied by Hartness International, Inc., based in Greenville, SC, picks the bottles up and gently places them into the empty cases which, at that point do not have the partitions inserted. 

The new short shunted partitions are inserted by the Wayne Automation partition inserter. Once filled, the cases are slit and sealed on equipment supplied by Pearson Packaging Systems in Spokane, Wash.

Case labeling is done by a Weber Marking Systems, Arlington Heights, Ill., labeler before being conveyed overhead by space-saving spiral mat top conveyors from AmbaFlex, Inc. of Grand Prairie, Texas. “These spiral conveyors help us save a lot of floor space. This is one of the reasons we were able to maintain the original footprint of the line,” North says.
The finished cases are palletized on an FKI Logistex, St. Louis, Mo. palletizer. The pallets are wrapped on equipment from Wulftec/M.J. Maillis of Quebec, Canada.

When considering line efficiency, Ste. Michelle looked at more than just equipment—the team looked at line layout as well. In an effort to streamline warehouse operations which support the line by providing pallets of bottles and removing pallets of finished product, the winery placed infeed and take away on the same side of the plant floor. This allows warehousing easy access to support the line, and reduces forklift traffic.

A first for the wine industry, short shunted partitions are placed into filled cases of wine on a partition inserter designed by Wayne Automation.  The shorter partition is made from post consumer recycled content and reduces cost as well as carbon footprint.

Barry-Wehmiller Design Group, based in St. Louis, Mo., provided the line controls, while Advanced Engineering and Controls integrated the operator interface terminals and the downtime tracking and data acquisition systems.

TRACKING FOR IMPROVEMENT

In the spirit of continuous improvement, a scada system from Wonderware Corporation, Lake Forest, Calif., was installed on the line, as well as Tracksys, from Parsec Automation Corp. based in Brea, Calif., to track OEE, downtime metrics, etc. “We have installed ‘thin client’ technology, allowing for shop floor interface screens to the MES [manufacturing execution system]. Our plant floor personnel have the ability to access reporting data on the shop floor. This significantly reduces errors. Multiple users, at various locations, can look up real time performance data, downtime reports, etc.,” North says. “The historical data gathered allows us to make any needed adjustments quickly.”

Operators are able to access detailed information around problems, such as the cause of jams, right on the factory floor. The winery has also improved the quality data system, North points out. All this data has helped with their lean manufacturing initiatives at the plant.

The data collected provides an overview of line performance with data such as total cases and an hour by hour chart highlighting any events and their causes. “Our team is able to get a picture of what caused the event and can do a root cause analysis to see if we can eliminate that issue for the next shift,” North says.

Bottles of Columbia Crest wine are labeled on a KRONES Solomatic labeler.

Ste. Michelle Wine Estates has dedicated a room on the manufacturing floor, just above the packaging line to Six Sigma activities. It is here team members from all disciplines meet daily to look at issues and discuss action items to improve the operation of the line. “The data we collect provide this group in-depth information on any issues we may be experiencing,” North says.

Ste. Michelle Wine Estates has a proud tradition of making award-winning wine, which could not be accomplished without a first-class packaging operation. With the installation of this new high speed line, Ste. Michelle demonstrates that environmental stewardship can also lead to operational excellence. 

Maria A. Ferrante is Editorial Director of PMT magazine.