‘Spare parts have always been and still remain a critical part of beverage bottling line management’

The service is split into three order types Emergency, Stock Replenishment and Maintenance; four lists of critical parts (Emergencies, Maintenance, Overhaul and Uptime), and parts covering the company’s past and present equipment portfolio. 

Inventory management of original parts

Martin Lowinski, director, Sidel Spare Parts, told FoodProductionDaily it wants to encourage a more proactive approach to inventory management of its original parts among its customers. 

“The service was officially launched after 18 months of reviewing, reorganising and overhauling our spare parts services operations​,” he said.

“It is also based on feedback provided by over 1,000 customers, which the company gathers as part of an annual survey. The spare parts service was initially introduced in regions worldwide and has now been rolled out globally​.

“It is an ongoing process that we will continually review and improve because spare parts have always been and still remain a critical part of beverage bottling line management​.”

Following Sidel’s 18-month review, the company overhauled its spare parts delivery service, enhanced its logistics network around the world, improved its supply centres, processes, transport network and inventory levels.

The company's distribution centres are in close proximity to airports and shipping channels to speed up delivery and there is a 24/7, overnight and weekend service.

“We offer a 24/7, overnight and weekend service, significantly extending the hotline that was previously in place to offer a whole service dedicated to improving the time taken to get the parts to the customer​,” added Lowinski.

Output rates from 20,000 to 100,000 bottles per hour

“We recognise keeping uptime of a production line is vital for today’s beverage producers. With output rates from 20,000 to 100,000 bottles per hour not untypical on PET bottling lines, it is easy to see that even a relatively short interruption to production can be very costly. That’s why it is important for beverage producers to keep production running and continuously improve their bottling lines​.”

According to Lowinski, almost 1,000 orders are processed and shipped globally every day, which is more than one order every two minutes, to an installed base of over 30,000 machines in 191 countries. 

The company also provides complete assemblies or sub-assemblies for customers to install themselves onsite.  Its engineers will refurbish assemblies, providing rotation assemblies to keep the line running in the meantime. 

“Sidel services business unit has already been recognised with two awards following an independent study into service performance in the beverage industry by the Technical University of Ilmenau in Germany​,” said Lowinski. 

On-time deliveries have improved by 6%

“We won awards for ‘reachability’ in terms of customers’ plants and for the ‘close proximity of our technicians’ and the results we have achieved already from the changes we have introduced in the regions are encouraging​.

“We have seen on-time deliveries improve by 6% from the data received in our most recent customer survey and the technical support system we have developed enables faster response to urgent issues through a ticketing system​.” 

Already adopted in selected regions are a Warehouse Management System (WMS) for bar coding and scanning and a Transport Management System (TMS) to track an order throughout the delivery process until it reaches its final destination.