Unilever has opened the R511-million expansion at its Indonsa factory, in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, making it the company’s largest savoury factory by volume.

The multinational consumer goods company explained on Wednesday said the investment increased the factory’s manufacturing capacity to 100 000 t, which would be fully utilised beyond 2020.

Unliver global CEO Paul Polman noted that the site, which manufactured Unilever’s savoury food brands, such as Knorr, Robertsons, Knorrox, Aromat and Rajah, would achieve this growth while maintaining the flexibility to accommodate both the complex savoury portfolio and aggressive innovation agenda linked to the growth.

The expansion also reduced Indonsa’s carbon footprint to 41 t, noted Unilever, adding that skills training of 130 factory workers was expected to ensure “world-class” operations.

“While we invest in world-class factories, we continue to invest in our people that drive our success. The Indonsa team is driven by core values that ensure that they are empowered and believe that success can be achieved by collaboration and teamwork,” Polman highlighted.

The expansion formed part of Unilever’s R3-billion Capacity Transformation Project (CTP) and Sustainable Living Plan. 

The CTP, known as Ingede, was signed off in September 2013 and was now fully operational, consisting primarily of four key technical areas.

Firstly was mixing capacity expansion, which at Indonsa entailed the installation and commissioning of three additional 4 m3 Dry Powder Amixon mixers.  “These mixers are twice the size of the current three mixers and will be primarily dosed directly from bulk silos,” Unilever explained.

The second technical area was the automated bulk material supply, which involved the installation and commissioning of 16 bulk silos and a pneumatic conveying system to dose the bulk materials directly from the silo to the new mixers.  This system was designed to provide both a supply buffer and unconstrained mixer operation.

The reconfiguration of the design and operation of the Indonsa site warehouse was also listed as a technical area. This comprised the current storage of material being moved off site and the conversion of the on-site warehouse into a just-in-time facility to supply daily call-off from packing and manufacturing halls. 

“This is required owing to insufficient storage space in the warehouse for volume growth. Moreover, this will allow expansion into the manufacturing facility within the current building footprint,” advised Unilever.

And, finally, the expansion involved upgrading the total integrated material flow management to manage, execute and monitor site operations required for the growth. 

The subsystems would include elements such as dynamic plant scheduling, semifinished goods management, line material call-off and key decision flow and impact management.