PROFILE: BALL AUSTRALIA
Working together – How Our Future Is Growing By Scott Morahan and Kate Grant Growth in any business is necessary, whether it is planning to expand product lines, streamline efficiencies in workflow processes or advance communication systems to improve impact on productivity and therefore value to the customer. Ball Australia targeted these areas with their move to Skye in 2017, with a purpose-built nursery and a site that allowed scope to maximise growth. Now five years on the company has settled well into the site at Skye and is realising the planning for further future growth an essential need. As Scott Morahan the Head of Production noted, ‘We had 40% extra growing capacity when we moved here, thinking it would give us some years to utilise that space, yet our growth has increased to 80% and we are ready for further expansion.’ The company was thrown a challenge in 2019 after a fire heavily affected part of their production area, and as Scott realised, ‘Even though the site was relatively new, it forced our hand and allowed us to re-assess and re-design how our production flow and layout could be more effective, resulting in better customer fulfilment’. A number of areas were reviewed as part of the re-build and once the clean-up from the fire had been completed, the first key area to improve was the quarantine house. The opportunity to split the quarantine house into two smaller zones was essential, enabling the flow of product through the quarantine house to be more manageable, offering greater flexibility with what can be brought into the house and when. Tissue culture volumes have increased significantly for the business over the past five years. The fire consumed the
Aftermath from the fire – 2019
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GROUNDSWELL AUGUST 2021
de-flasking tent and benches from this area leaving a significant gap in the production flow. De-flasking can be complicated and is potentially a high-risk operation if you do not have the right set-up. While the rebuild for this department was underway, the operation had to be relocated to the germination houses. This was good for the plants, but not for the process flow, KPI’s and more importantly the staff who had to work in such a humid environment month after month. Ball Australia now has a fantastic new system that incorporates a temperature-controlled chamber for receival, unpacking, inspection and holding. Minimizing the stress on very small plants waiting to be transferred to plug trays. The new design incorporates two-way conveyors, individual workstations that maintain efficient production and good hygiene. Two misting tents have been installed to further reduce environmental stress on warm days so as to not impact the production flow of the sowing and vegetative lines as the benches make their way into the fog compartments. Another vital part of Ball Australia’s operation is the vegetative plug supply from home grown mother stock that is generated from elite imported material. Cuttings are taken from the mother stock production and are then stuck. Previously the design and process flow for this work section was fairly basic. So, in a similar manner to how the company improved it’s
New storage racking
