Published in Cantech Magazine
Written by Simon Jennings
An initial market survey was carried out by Ashmore Group with support of Nomis Consultancy in 2014. It found that with Pakistan’s increasing population and economic activity, coupled with the new ‘on-the-go’ lifestyle trend, especially amongst the younger generation, there was an increasing demand for beverage cans. The market in neighbouring Afghanistan was also developing. However, demand in both countries was being constrained by the need to import all the cans from the Middle East.
Discussions were held with a number of major industry players to see if they would support the construction of a new plant in Pakistan, but these did not come to fruition. As a result, in 2015, a decision was taken to go forward with an investment project of $70 million with support of funds managed by Ashmore Group and the Liberty Group of Pakistan, together with debt from a large local bank, Habib Bank.
Following an extensive review of options for a site, PABC chose a 21-acre site at the M3 Industrial City in Faisalabad. This 4,500-acre industrial park, which has been granted the status of a Special Economic Zone, has been developed by the Faisalabad Industrial Estate Development Company (FIEDMC) with support of the Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (FCCI) and the Punjab Provincial Government.
Faisalabad with just over four million inhabitants is Pakistan’s third most populous city. It is located in the eastern province of Punjab, being well connected, with links to the excellent national motorway system and an international airport and daily direct flights to various hubs in the Middle East. The city is known as the ‘Manchester of Pakistan’, as over half of the country’s textiles are exported from this area. It is also a major industrial and educational centre. On 10 October 2015, a ceremony to mark the groundbreaking plans took place in Islamabad. As with many, if not most projects, there were some changes to the plans. This included moving to a better located site within the M3 Industrial City leading to a delay before the start of the construction work.
The construction company chosen by PABC was Descon Engineering, a multi-discipline engineering services company serving a wide range of industries within Pakistan, as well as in the Middle East. They started work on preparing the site in the spring of 2016, with test piling for the foundations starting in May.
Final line layout and design, which has a planned capacity of 1.2 billion cans per annum, was developed with the help of Roeslein & Associates, who were the chosen plant integrators. On PABC’s behalf they began to place orders for equipment in the first half of June, based on the team’s experience, quality and delivery schedule. PABC ordered its bodymakers, neckers and spray machines from CME, whilst Stolle supplied the cupper and eight-colour printer. The washer was ordered from Cincinnati, pin oven and IBO from ARC Pacific, and palletiser from Busse. The state of the art line has a vision system from Pressco and the full range of quality systems linked to Lighthouse and SAP systems. The PABC plant is fully compliant with local and international environmental legislation and has a self-generating power plant, as well being linked to the rapidly improving national grid.
The 212,000 sq ft PEE building, was delivered in the late summer and erected, whilst foundation work for the line continued during the autumn. The equipment, which was shipped to Pakistan, was managed by UTC and started to arrive in January 201 7. The installation team from Roeslein and the OEM’s 30 expats joined a Pakistani construction workforce of up to 500 at the site. At the time of writing, the site has suffered no serious accidents (LTI’s) and few near misses, with safety training and best practices being prioritised by the project team.
The first production shift was recruited during the first quarter of 201 7, with a mix of trained can makers, both local and expats and trained mechanical and electrical engineers. Together with the installation teams who came from China, The Philippines, South Africa, Poland, UK and USA, they worked hard to keep to the agreed schedule.
The first cups were made on 30 April. Cans arrived at the washer on the l May, by which time 750 containers of equipment and construction material had arrived at the site. The first pallet of DWI beverage cans were produced on 16 May, a year after foundation work started on the factory.
Multi-national and local brands will be supplied with a range of standard and specialty cans for the local market and Afghanistan. PABC will have the ability to manufacture slim cans in 185ml and 250ml, and 211 cans in 250ml, 300ml, 3·30ml and 500ml sizes. Initial contracts have been secured and there is excitement being generated regarding the opportunity brought about by local supply. A number of new filling lines having been ordered by existing and new users of beverage cans and PABC plant, have been designed to enable its easy expansion to meet expected demand.
PABC recently signed a Technical Support Agreement with Ball Corporation, with support from Ball’s engineering group in Europe and training of the production team has taken place at Ball UAC in Damman, Saudi Arabia.
Bringing this project in on time and within budget happened as a result of a tremendous effort by the whole PABC team, our partners and all of our suppliers. The Federal Government of Pakistan, the Provincial Government of Punjab, FIDMEC and FCCI gave PABC excellent support for this pioneering proj ect, which is a great example of confidence in Pakistan’s future.
PABC aspires to be the best supplier to the beverage industry in the region, delivering world class quality from its state of the art plant and making Pakistan an exporter of beverage cans rather than being wholly dependent on imports.