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ISSUE 04-05 / 2001 |
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| Preform Production | BACK to contents |
STRATEGY FOR GROWTH AND COMPETITIVENESS
Nemuno Banga, the fastest growing preform suppliers in Eastern Europe, celebrate the commissioning of their tenth injection moulding system, just 3 years after start up. A commitment to quality and to getting the best out of their suppliers is keeping them competitive.
Nemuno Banga has in a very short time become a well known name in the PET
preform market in Eastern Europe and Russia. Anyone hearing the words ”Nemuno
Banga” for the first time cannot imagine just how quickly this company has
grown. The business started in 1993, producing cigarette filters, with PET
preforms being added to the range in 1997. Since that time preform production
has almost doubled each year and the company is now one of the mayor players
in Eastern Europe and Russia. The total system capacity is 920 cavities or
approximately 4 million preforms per day – including machines recently ordered.
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| The location of Nemuno Banga in Lithuania | Nemuno Banga and the inauguration of the tenth preform system |
Lithuania, the small Baltic nation with a great history, still only has a
population of little more than 3 million. The people of Lithuania have their
own national identity and a strong spirit of enterpreneurship, which is now
the driving force behind the country’s efforts to close the gap on other European
economies. After the downfall of the communist empire in Eastern Europe and
the return to democracy and free enterprise in theses countries, Lithuania
now holds a strategic position between Russia and the other countries of Europe,
which provides good business opportunities for young enterprises such as Nemuno
Banga. An important precondition for success is therefore the establishment
of an efficient logistical service. Access to the Baltic Sea, through the
ice-free port of Klaipeda and a well-developed highway and railroad network
are a favourable starting point.
To have the vision of a business opportunity and the courage to start from
zero are two essentials when setting up a totally new company. Having the
necessary perseverance during the start-up period, overcoming bureaucratic
hurdles and getting one’s foot in the doors of the markets during the early
years, are a few other basic requirements. The availability of good people
has been an extremely important factor, but experience still had to be built
up during the starting phase. The three founders, and today the sole owners,
of Nemuno Banga, Jonas Tucinskas, Virginijus Adutavicius and Arvydas Juozeliunas,
had the ideas, the skills and the necessary entrepreneurial spirit to go successfully
through this process, and recently enjoyed the milestone start-up of their
tenth preform injection moulding system on September, 27th, 2000 - just 37
months after the first system began production.
The success of Nemuno Banga (the name represents “a wave on the Nemunas river”)
has been built on four cornerstones:
Quality
An uncompromising acceptance of all measures contributing to high quality.
Such factors are: excellent resin quality – Nemuno Banga claims to be the
only preform moulder in the region using world-class resin. Other factors
are excellent equipment, establishment of safe processes, a world class quality
assurance system and, in particular, quality awareness at all levels in the
factory organisation. Against this background Nemuno Banga has recently obtained
ISO 9002 certification. The leading global beverage companies that are expanding
in Russia and in the entire Eastern European region have brought their very
high quality standards into these countries and accepted Nemuno Banga as a
supplier.
Reliability
A dependable supply of high quality preforms is essential for all of the major
beverage companies, in order to respond to fluctuations in demand without
delay. Flexibility just is one more aspect of reliability.
Service
Preforms in a wide range of dimensions and of any desired colour can be supplied,
and where such logistic services are requested Nemuno Banga will deliver to
the customer’s plant, including across national borders. Having its own fleet
of trucks, the company comfortably faces most logistical challenges.
Price
Despite all the effort and cost of constantly maintaining high levels of quality
and reliably the price of Nemuno Banga preforms is very competitive.
The general policy of Nemuno Banga differs from most other preform suppliers
in one important respect: the fast growing Lithuanian company is convinced
that they operate a sound policy in using two suppliers injection moulding
equipment. These two suppliers are SIG Corpoplast and Husky.
The majority of the systems presently in operation are SIG Corpoplast Premax
systems. One of the positive features claimed for the Premax systems at Nemuno
Banga is the high degree of reliability, which guarantees an unmatched overall
productivity during the year. Nemuno Banga is, in addition, very happy with
the on-site service that SIG Corpoplast provides and their flexibility with
regard to specific requirements such as limitation in overall systems height.
Last but not least, SIG Corpoplast has offered very competitive prices for
all of their equipment. As a logical consequence Nemuno Banga has bought 9
SIG Corpoplast Premax systems in total, including one Premax 96 system, which
will be the first of the new design in this size.
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| SIG Coroplast Premax system no.
9, before being tested at SIG Coroplast Plant in Hamburg |
The production facilities of Nemuno Banga |
The two-supplier strategy keeps alive competition between the two machinery
companies for future business and in turn helps Nemuno Banga to stay competitive.
Nemuno Banga’s management is quite adamant: “ When we talk about equivalent
machine performance of the two suppliers we know what we are talking about,
since we have had three years to compare – seeing is believing.” In turn,
the SIG Corpoplast people are very much aware that they have to constantly
strive to outperform their competitors and to satisfy their client. This means
on-time delivery, quick machine start up and machine cycle time, as well as
in machine maintenance and in the on-site availability and quality of after-sales
service.
Nemuno Banga is continuing to grow. The company is sharing in the increased
PET bottle usage in their current markets - with PET beer bottles expected
to be one significant product. They are at the same time continuously increasing
their market share. As the next step, they are now introducing a 24 gram oil
preform onto the market. Nemuno Banga is not afraid to go west – Germany (currently
the fastest growing PET bottle market in Europe) as well as Eastern Europe
are the next targets. The company is very confident: “Maintaining our overall
package of quality, reliability, service and price will make us a very interesting
partner for the beverage industry in Western Europe and in particular in Germany,
where bottlers are just switching from glass to PET. Last but not least, most
of Nemuno Banga’s high quality preforms for German PET bottles will be manufactured
from world-wide approved resins using high quality injection moulding systems”.
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