PETpla.net Insider 10 / 2017

EDITOUR PET planet Insider Vol. 18 No. 10/17 www.petpla.net 20 Tour Sponsors: In-house PET packaging by Kay Barton The Siam Drinking Water headquarters and bottling plant is located one hour to the north of Bangkok, in the province of Pathum Thani. The same location is also home to the Titan Success plastic bottle blowmoulding business, which handles approximately 80% of the total demand for PET bottles at Siam. Under the Titan World brand name, the company operates an additional plant around 80km away, at the Siam Drink bottling company. Titan Success Co., Ltd. Pathum Thani, Thailand, June 16, 2017 We met: Mr Thawatchai Traevijitsilp, General Manager Mr Aketanach Donkongdee, Plant Manager Ms Maywanee Kongpreecha, Demark Representative “Titan Success was founded three years ago, Titan World has been going for eight years. Manufacturing on-site enables us to make considerable sav- ings,” Mr Thawatchai explains. “We have leased our manufacturing facilities instead of building them ourselves, and no transport is necessary.” Mr Thawatchai previously worked in food packaging, before moving across to PET processing in the drinks seg- ment. In this field, Titan uses equip- ment from Demark and Chumpower. At Titan Success, five Demark blowing lines are currently in use: two 12-cavity and two 6-cavity rotary blowers (R12, R6), and one linear blower (SFL6). A sixth rotary blower with 6 cavities (R6) is set for delivery at the end of June. The company’s current bottle output totals 15 million per month, made up of five designs in the 550ml, 600ml and 1.5l brackets. This includes Pepsi’s Aquafina, which is bottled on licence at Siam; its bottle design has recently been adapted in order to meet the latest standards and requirements. In addition to Siam Drinking Water and Aquafina, the company also manufac- tures PET water bottles for own-label Tesco products here, as well as energy drink company Carabao’s water line. The preforms for both locations and an additional 17 million bottles are manufactured each month at the Titan World plant, which also supplies a variety of brands of fruit juice and Kisan, the water bottler. Two Demark (DMK-PET 72A) preform lines, each with 72 cavities, manufacture some 21 million preforms per month, of which 13 million are 15.5g and the other eight million, 28.5g. The 14.5g preforms are purchased by the bottler from external sources. Blowmoulding takes place on two linear Chumpower (CPSP- CS6000E) and two Demark linear SFL 6 blowmoulding systems. “Over the long term, we are plan- ning to further develop our business in the fruit juice segment,” Mr Thawatchai explains. “The majority of the bottles we manufacture are small-volume. Right now, a clear trend is emerging towards everything being packaged in bottles of less than 500ml, along with an increase in the demand for mineral water.” Aquafina has recently developed a line of uncarbonated mineral water, which is now hitting shop shelves in Thailand. “We forecast a continuous increase in demand for bottled water, with a tendency towards falls in CSD con- sumption. Here at Siam, we are expecting to see growth of 5-10% per year,” Mr Donkongdee adds. “Since we only supply ‘our own’ two bottlers, however, we estimate our total market share for water bottles in Thailand to be less than 10%.” A new project for the company is the development of a new 1.5l bottle for a nationwide petrol station group. Titan Success currently has 50 employees and Titan World 40. In 2016, Titan Success attained a turnover of some US$ 4.3 million, while at Titan World, turnover was US$ 6.2 million. The need for cost reduction is lead- ing the company’s drive for the imple- mentation of a new strategy to ensure the continuing success of the business. Part of the plan is for Titan World and Titan Success to align their businesses and to develop new customers and markets, in ways that will ensure it achieves the optimum profit margin for both partners. Some of Titan’s different bottles including a new design for Aquafina