PETpla.net Insider 03 / 2016

BOTTLE MAKING 15 PET planet insider Vol. 17 No. 03/16 www.petpla.net “Our customers like having the option of, for example, making a brand-specific colour selection for the attached handle, which might match the cap,” he explains. And & Or has occupied its cur- rent premises since 2011, the year that it first built high-speed palletising machines for empty bottles, followed a year later by display palletisers for filled units. The production hall covers 6,200m², where 70 employees cur- rently work in parallel on between 20 and 25 projects. Twelve members of staff work in development and machine design. The current prod- uct line includes around 100 differ- ent types of machines, almost all of which are custom designed. Between 2012 and 2015 the company deliv- ered products to 243 different custom- ers in 56 countries. Its main market is Europe, which takes about 50% of sales; 10% to Spain itself. North and South America account for nearly 30% and Asia 10%. The remaining busi- ness is in the Middle East and Africa. The range of customers includes plastic converters (about half), 23% in the bottling industry and 20% machin- ery manufacturers and OEMs, which supply their machines mainly to the bottling industry. Dealers account for the remainder. Customers include Alpla, Graham Packaging and RPC in bottle manufacturing; Coca-Cola, Danone, Heineken, Johnson & John- son and Nestlé in bottling; and KHS, Krones, Sidel and Sipa on the OEM side. Turnover amounted to nearly US$ 13,1 million in 2015. All develop- ment and manufacturing is carried out internally. A few external service pro- viders can also be found in the halls, working in the area of electronics or for welding for example. And & Or remains very much a family business – but how did so many family members end up working for the father’s company? “For me, it wasn’t clear from the start that I would join my father’s company,” Caridad explains. “I have realised over time, though, the devel- opment possibilities are of course considerably greater in your own com- pany than elsewhere. I think it’s cer- tainly the same way with my brothers. We are grateful to be part of this.” “For customers, our strengths are certainly our family business philoso- phy and our customer-oriented men- tality, which is practiced by all employ- ees here. We also emphasise steady, but not hurried, growth, step by step,” Antonio Sr adds. The family inside this company does indeed impart a kind of motivational energy, which is notice- ably reflected in the workforce. What can we expect from And & Or in the future? “New developments are not neces- sarily our current focus. In the breadth of our product line and in the different areas that we service, I already see a great deal of growth potential. We will focus rather on the further develop- ment of our existing products,” Anto- nio Jr says. “In recent years, it has been possible to significantly increase the speed of our machines. Many fur- ther developments also arise through our close collaboration with custom- ers. We see future growth particularly in Asia and North America. At the moment around 25% of our sales go to Latin America and only around 5% to North America. We want to expand that and plan to open a local sales office soon.” www.andyor.com F.l.t.r.: Juan Pablo Ortega Suárez, Caridad Ortega Suárez, Antonio Ortega Suárez and father Antonio Ortega Ruiz Family business with (f.l.t.r.) Antonio Jr, Antonio Sr, Juan Pablo and Caridad Machine assembly area