Quality Alchemist (品質煉金術師): HKSQ Technical Visit to Foshan Coca Cola Plant

Hong Kong Society for Quality (HKSQ) arranged a two-day technical visit to Foshan Coca Cola Plant and Ceramics Museum on 19^th & 20^th Jan 2018. These technical visits would allow us to investigate both the technological and traditional approaches to production. The first part is a tour of the Coca Cola Foshan Plant, and second part is a visit to Foshan Ceramics Museum (南風古灶). I would like to share the day 1 visit. In 1978, the economic reform policy of China began to attract foreign enterprises to re-enter the vast markets in China. In 1979, Coca-Cola became one of the first international companies to re-establish her food and beverage business in China. In 2014, Coca Cola celebrated its 35 years of operation in China under the reform policy. So far, Coca Cola has 43 plants, 10 brands, and more than 50 flavors of different beverages to serve the vast population of China.

Our tour leader was Dr. Ivan Ng who arranged the first day of visit to Coca Cola.

We started from Shenzhen and the travel time about 3 hours.

We had lunch first in Green Lake hotel.

It is very close to Monument of Revolution Hero and we went to take a group photo for memory.

We were arrived to the Coca-Cola Bottlers Manufacturing (Foshan) Company Ltd. We saw SCMC under the logo Coca-Cola that was Supply Chain Management Company.

In the beginning, Dr. Ivan Ng introduced HKSQ to the Mr. George Dai (Plant Manager) and Mr. Rick Lee (IT Director & Executive Assistant to CEO). Then HKSQ members introduced themselves for sharing.

After that Mr. George Dai introduced that the plant was started in 2009, built in 2010 and production in 2011. He worked in the beginning of the plant. Then Mr. Rick Lee briefed some background and strategy of Foshan Coca-Cola to us. Mr. Rick Lee said he was responsible in Digitalization and Information to make the plant to be smart and automation. He told us the big competitor in China was not Pepsi but local large brand.

And then Mr. Rick Lee mentioned their drink separated “Sprinkling” and “Still”. Their processed had two types that one was Hot Fill (HF) and the other was Aseptic Line (AL). Some products were for our trial.

Mr. Wang (Quality Manager) presented their supply chain of HF and AL in different locations in China.

The vision and mission were stated below:

SCMC 2020 Vision – We will be the seamless supply chain benchmark in Coke system.

SCMC Mission Statement – To deliver to our customers the most competitively priced products whilst ensuring at all times the highest standards of quality, technological innovation, environmental integrity and customer service supported by motivated teams with best in class capability.

Vision and Mission formed their cultures and they included Safety, Life and Quality.

In their Safety and Quality Culture, their separated into six values and they were Management Commitment, Performance Management, Involvement of People, Knowledge and Skill, Communication and Sharing, as well as, Continual Improvement. Mr. Rick Lee added that they had 20 KPIs and 3 of them related to quality. They were “Customer Complaint Rate”, “GMP assessment mark” and “Product Quality” which based on specific characteristics.

Then I represented HKSQ to present our 30^th anniversary book to Mr. Rick Lee and Mr. George Dai.

Before visit the plan, we took a group photo.

When entered into GMP Plant, we needed to wear lab coat, cap and shoes cover, as well as washing our hands.

The shoes cover machine was designed by them and it could automatically seal the cover using heat air.

Video demonstration

We took a photo inside the entry of the plant.

The Production Process Flow was explained from water treatment, single syrup produce and PET Chip to final packaging process.

Mr. George Dai reminded the safety rule and introduced the area indication meaning to us. They implemented Lean and Automation. The whole production line for orange juice had only six people.