ISI Technical Visit to Vitasoy International Holdings Limited

Vitasoy was founded in Hong Kong in 1940 on the vision of health, quality and great taste. Vitasoy is listed in 1994 on the main board of the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong and its footprint is now around the world. The visit was organized by Institute of Systematic Innovation, HK (ISI) and supported by HKIE-MIE Division on 11 Jan 2014. It aimed to exchange quality improvements and innovation model, as well as, sharing some successful cases.

Before arriving Vitasoy, we took a group in front of the Vitasoy Building.
(Left: Dr. Frankie Law (HKIE), Dr. Lotto Lai (HKSQ), Dr. Michael Li (ISI) and Mr. Victor Chan (HKIServices))

In the beginning, Ir. Daniel Ng (ISI) introduced this visit and the Innovation Technology Exchange Seminar included ISI and New World Development Co., Ltd.

Then I was invited to give an introduction to Hong Kong Society for Quality (HKSQ). I said the quality and innovation were two key concepts and both of them had many opportunity to promote and utilize together. It was one of HKSQ future directions.

Before the talk, Mr. Man Cheung (Sr. Operation Manager, Vitasoy) and Mr. Herbert Lee (Engineering Manager, Vitasoy) demonstrated their coin box in which employed some innovative idea to prevent the coin flow out during collection.

Mr. Herbert Lee introduced the background of Vitasoy and then he shared the evolution of beverage processing & packaging. The most important element was Sterilization of beverage. He explained the advantages and disadvantages among different sterilization techniques included:
I) Autoclave System
II) Hot Filling
They found that contradictions among Temperature and Pressure. After they used TRIZ contradiction table and found the solution below.
III) Ultra High Temp - High Temp Short Time (UHT - HTST)

Then he briefed the Cold aseptic filling process for PET from perform to Blow-molding to Bottle Sterilization & Rinsing to Aseptic Filling & Closure and became a final product. It used advance German technology for aseptic cold filled PET.

Mr. Herbet Lee also shared another case which employed TRIZ to solve the Tea Extractor in which performance improved through design modification. He used contradiction matrix, inventive principle, function analysis and trimming* to remove the excess screws & nuts and resolve tea leaves leaking and screen clogging problem.
(*Trimming was based on improving a system by reducing the number of components and simplifying the system to achieve Simplicity Design.)

After that Dr. Michael Lee (President, ISI) introduced his new model named "FIX". He mentioned that we needed to know where Breakthrough or Improvement we wanted to do firstly. Most of companies would like to go for improvement first because of lesser risk. FIX indicated that F is for Function (e.g. Function, Fast or Feasible), I is for Interaction (e.g. Component interaction analysis) and X is for Trimming (e.g. Trimming, Cross-functional, Lean & clean, or simple). Dr. Lee said almost all tools employed in the FIX model that mainly included in MATRIZ Level 1.

During the plant visit, there were separated into three teams.
We visited Aseptic Packaging.

Cold Aseptic Filling was observed in clean room or clean area. The throughput was 36000 bottoms per hour. Peroxyacetic Acid (POAA or PAA) was used for sterilization during blow-fill-seal process.

The last site we visited was Tetra Pak Aseptic Packages. It used H2O2 for sterilization. There was 6 layer packages included:
Layer 1 - Polyethylene protects against outside moisture
Layer 2 - Paper for stability and strength
Layer 3 - Polyethylene adhesion layer
Layer 4 - Aluminium foil oxygen flavour and light barrier
Layer 5 - Polyethylene adhesion layer
Layer 6 - Polyethylene seals in the liquid

Before end of tour, Mr. Victor Chan, who is both member of ISI and HKSQ, took a creative photo with Vitasoy poster.

Finally, Mr. Herbert Lee shared their waste reduction lean project using six sigma "DMAIC". After improvement, the wastage rate was reduced and ROI within about 5 month.

After Q&A, we took a group photo for memory.

Reference:
Vitasoy International Holdings Limited - http://www.vitasoy.com/
Institute of Systematic Innovation, HK - http://www.isi.org.hk/
HKIE-MIE Division - http://www.hkie.org.hk/eng/html/aboutthehkie/Disciplines/mie.asp
HKSQ - http://www.hksq.org/

MA TRIZ Certification Level 1 Training
(Part 1) http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2013/04/ma-triz-certification-level-1-training.html
(Part 2) http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2013/04/ma-triz-certification-level-1-training_27.html