Can Pack Inc.

One of the companies that we visited was the famous canning company Can Pack. Many people don't know about this company of pay much attention to how all of their products are canned but this company does a lot of canning all through out the world. This company has many facilities all through out Europe but in this specific center that we were in cans 3,000,000 cans per day that is 1,800 cans per minute. When they get there aluminum from their supplier they hedge the cans and get a fixed 2 year rate which they price their aluminum off of. We got to see the manufacturing facility that they had and I left my camera in the car but hopefully I will be able to get pictures from some people and post them on facebook. We also got to see their testing facility where they measure the perfect size, height and can diameter. In 15 years only two people have been injured in the facility and they typically have been fingers that have been cut at the tips.

The Product Scope
Aluminum 2 piece beverage cans
Steel 3 piece food and general cans
Crown Caps for glass bottles
Glass Containers
Recycling Standards for the EU
Engineering, Spare Parts and Tools

They have over 9.5 billion production capacity per year in 8 plants.
They are the #4 producer of cans in Europe and #5 in the U.S.

They Produce 1.3 billion steel cans per year and 200 million steel containers per year.

They have over 29 billion capacity in 7 plants for bottle caps and they are the number one producer of bottle caps in the world! WOW.

They have 400 million glass container production capacity which they have newly expanded in Poland by acquiring an old and run down plant in Poland.

Geographical Information
They have their head quarters in Krakow.
17 plants in Europe.
4 plants in Asia.

All their products include beverage, food crown caps and glass containers.

The strength of the company includes how they have incorporated the newest and latest technology and they have expanded so fast after being only 18 years old. They are a newly and recently developed company because of the political and social framework of Eastern Europe that was Communist only twenty years earlier. Can Pack is a very lean and effective organization dedicated to management and company staff. They are one of the most efficient with some of the fastest market growth that has enabled them to gain much international experience. Currently they are netting about 1.25 billion dollars in revenue with 15% increases every year fairing very well in this struggling economy.

They have been concerned with consolidating in Polish Currency to the U.S. and have not broken into the U.S. quite yet because it is such a mature market for this industry. There are four main players for the bottling industry in the U.S. which Can Pack has not yet competed against at this time. They have branched off into North Africa, the Middle East, Asia and South Africa. Once again they hedge the price for the aluminum metal which makes up about 70% of their total revenue to fix the flexible metal prices. They have had trouble trying to break into the soviet and Ukraine market because business is difficult there. Each country is different while doing business there so you must always have a background of what is going on in the country through local lawyers and people.

They are not a publicly traded company and get most of their capital through local bank loans and corporate bonds. This business was started by a father and son back in 1991. They have a 5 year pay back period where in a mature market the pay back period is 9-10 years. In a less mature market like Africa the pay back period is 4 years.

It costs around 70-80 million dollars to create a new plants which apparently they have never failed in making a new venture in creating new plants around the world. Every year they take about 400 million dollars for reinvestment in new ventures which shows as a true testament to how aggressive they really are. They are highly efficient in the way that per all the capital equipment that they own compared to other companies they make about 50% more in cash flow. The Lithograph process of putting the brands on their cans only takes about 10 hours per shift because they are constantly changing from multiple producers. They stop the process and restart with high efficiency that most big name factory producers can not. Typically in the U.S. this process takes up to 7 days per print. Some of the big names that they are involved with are Kausberg, Heineken, Coca Cola, and Pepsi. 75% of their business is big global customers. Obviously the market is globalizing in the business world today.

They have a strong consolidating process internationally hiring trucks and delivering their product. They have an internet platform where distributing companies bid out one another for the business of Can Pack and they go as low as they can go because if they get the job they will have an incredible amount of business. They get about 150 trucks going in and out of their service center in Krakow per day. A lot of their equipment runs about 30 years and they have 3,500 employees world wide. This shows how they can expand so far internationally but still have so few employees being highly efficient. In Krakow they only have 16 people working on the floor at one time.

The philosophy of Can Pack is to treat their customers well and understand that they are a great asset just like all the equipment in the factory. They have trouble dealing with Western Europe because of the Unions in France, Spain and Germany. I asked about where they get their technology and they said that it is all out sourced. The biggest customer of Can Pack is Ball Co. from the U.S. where they try and have growth and reinvestment. In the U.S. the service sector is going up and the production sector is dwindling down.