Reducing Production Defects for Amcor Beverage Cans  

Amcor Beverage Cans is expecting to decrease waste by as much as 20,000 cans per day, as a result of their current CEED project. 

The company manufactures over 3 million aluminium beverage cans per day at their Rocklea plant in Brisbane, for clients such as Coca Cola, Schweppes, Fosters and Golden Circle. 

As a result of this project, Amcor aim to reduce spoilage caused by pleats (defects in the neck of a can) to a best practice target of 0.25%.  Rejection caused by pleats is a cost to the business.  So a reduction in pleats will lead directly to a profit increase for Amcor. 

Jason Scukovic (on left) with his Amcor Beverage Cans supervisor Lee Gale,  inspecting production line one at Rocklea.

CEED student Jason Scukovic (final year Mechatronics Engineering, UQ) has been working on this classic process improvement project, since early February. 

During the project, Jason will work with a small Amcor team comprised of engineers, production and maintenance personnel.  The team’s primary objectives are to understand what contributes to pleats occurring at the company’s Rocklea plant, and to identify the primary processes that initiate the pleats.  They will focus on production line number one at Rocklea, which is a high speed line capable of producing approximately 2,000 cans per minute. 

There are currently several theories amongst company employees as to why these pleats are occurring, and Jason will investigate each one.  Jason will use the Taguchi Method for Experiment Design to define key root causes, or combinations of causes, of the pleats at Rocklea.  This method is beneficial as it gains the maximum information from the minimum number of tests ... thereby limiting disruption to production.  It also allows valuable information to be gained on interactions between sets of variables. 

Jason must also avoid increasing spoilage in other areas, when reducing the pleat spoilage. 

Lee Gale (Amcor Beverage Cans) and Jason Scukovic (CEED student) inspecting data on production line one at Rocklea.  Jason will run experiments and analyse production data during his project, to identify the root cause of pleats (defects in the neck of drink cans).

The scope of the project will encompass the entire production line number one, from can body making through to can decorating, to ensure all processes where the pleats may originate are investigated.  Jason will methodically work through all of these areas.  He’ll liaise with various personnel who hold valuable information regarding how their particular area may influence the occurrence of pleats. 

As well as decreasing Amcor’s waste, there are other anticipated benefits from this project.  Maintenance and production staff will have more time for other tasks, as pleat management and spoilage monitoring has been a recurring issue for many years. 

There are also environmental benefits.  Aluminium cans are 100% recyclable and afford a 90% energy saving when recycled.  However it is still less efficient to scrap, transport, recycle and remake cans than it is to avoid scrapping them entirely. 

Lee Gale, Continuous Improvement Engineer, supporting Jason at Rocklea stated “it has been great to have an extra pair of hands to focus on this key issue. Jason has fitted in really well with the team and has been making the most of this fantastic opportunity to get ‘real world’ manufacturing experience”. 

Jason is on track to deliver his project report in early-June.