Page 37 - Beverage Master February March 2020

Craft Beverage

“Customers appreciate our partnership approach. “Automation brings a level of consistency in the
They know that when they work with WestRock on packing process by the way cartons are erected and
a total automated solution, they have a single point glued versus the manual approach, which can be
of contact for paperboard, corrugated and machin- subject to human variance. In a tight labor market
ery solutions that work together.” like we have in the U.S., finding laborers to hand-
pack cartons can be challenging, and the hourly pay
Hayslette points out that for many craft breweries rate is increasing in some jurisdictions. Automation
and distilleries, automation comes into play when also brings the ability to pack out more product
growth demands something beyond what a manual in the same period. Manual packaging works best
operation can handle. when there is no bottleneck created to the produc-
tion process; there is readily available labor; and
“Typically, end-of-line packaging automation deci- the rate of pay is reasonable, such that the total
sions are driven by upgrades to filling capacity. In cost of packaging is reasonable. “
other words, if a brewery is filling cans at a rate of
45 cans per minute with a mobile filler and they Hayslette stresses that WestRock works with cli-
decide to purchase their own filler with a speed of ents to help ease the burden of financing the cap-
100 cans per minute, they will likely not be able ital investment costs tied to purchasing machinery
to keep up with the speed using labor, or their for end-of-line packaging. He points to return-on-in-
costs will increase prohibitively. Instead, with the vestment as one key consideration for breweries
investment in the faster filler, they also become and distilleries thinking of buying automated pack-
interested in automated packaging to address their aging systems.
objectives.”
“We encourage customers to think about their
There is a delicate balance, Hayslette says, total cost of ownership and do a side-by-side anal-
between reducing costs for labor and materials, ysis of the manual versus automated process. A
while working to maximize productivity. manual process typically carries with it the cost of

BEVERAGE MASTER February - March 2020 35

BM120120 Main Pages .indd 35 1/27/20 3:56 PM