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Constellation Europe

Constellation Europe introduce flexible working patterns

Constellation Europe, one of the largest drinks companies in Europe, is the European operating arm of Constellation Brands Inc. The company has more than 250 brands in approximately 150 countries with core markets in North America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. They employ 9,500 people, within 60 production/distribution facilities, including 30,000 acres of land and vineyard worldwide. They produce and market over 120 million cases of wine annually, with a turnover of $5.2 billion p.a, making them the No 1 Wine Company in the world.

Constellation recently built the largest bonded warehouse in Europe, supplied by a world class dedicated bottling facility, named Constellation Park. The site was designed to provide the company with the flexibility and capacity to cope with the continued growth of the business in the UK and Europe. This new site presented opportunities for synergy between the warehousing and bottling functions, allowing for increased levels of multi‐skilling and flexible working between the teams.

Constellation engaged Working Time Solutions Ltd, and utilised the WORK Suite, Scheduling module to gain specialist support in the design of working time arrangements for the new distribution centre and bottling facility. It was clear that more flexible, seasonal based rota’s would provide better capacity and reduced costs, to the relatively inflexible and more traditional working arrangements employed at the existing, separate sites.

Previously the business operated on the classic Double Day Shift, which presented them with a number of issues, in relation to the known business growth and available capacity at the new site. The fixed output capacity the pattern provided meant that peak production, September through to November were accommodated with employment of temporary staff, with additional wage and training expense, also creating disruption to existing teams to dilute the impact of the new, less experienced staff, with an increased overtime cost. Equally, the reduced production requirement through December to February incurred costs for the under‐utilisation of staff. A further issue the temporary labour requirement caused was there was no guarantee of labour when required.

The desired outcome in the development of new working time arrangements, achieved through the combined work of Constellation Senior Management and Working Time Solutions Ltd consultancy and software, was to create m ulti‐disciplined teams, allowing the company to invest in and develop the workforce with flexible and dynamic working patterns to meet the market demands. Alongside the patterns created, changing the terms and conditions attracted higher calibre personnel, ensured Lean was at the centre of all activities and reduced the labour costs.

The approach followed involved Working Time Solutions Ltd analysis of historical demand data, to provisionally map supply of labour to the required demand. Both the Unions and the workforce were engaged in the project from an early stage to help generate options and create ownership for the new patterns. Constant and regular communications, using a variety of methods, including question and answer sessions ensured the workforce were fully and accurately informed. This communication and engagement helped ensure that the significant change met less resistance and prevented a knowledge vacuum, which could be filled with incorrect assumptions.

The new shift patterns created better matched the true seasonality of the demand, with additional reserve to ensure the increased demand could be accommodated with the existing workforce, rather than utilisation of temporary or agency labour. The pattern, with fully rostered holidays provided the company with 140 reserved hours, vital for the September to November peak, ensured there was no planned weekend work, and provided employees with 14 full weeks off work p.a.

The benefits of the new system included:

• Ability to meet seasonal changes in demand without overtime or temporary staff.
• Reduction in staff costs.
• Better work‐life balance for staff.
• Better quality of product through use of permanent staff only.
• Fixed labour costs.
• Reduction in administration of employee pay.
• Enabled training investment.
• Developed team work within warehousing and bottling.
• Underpinned Lean Culture development.
• Allowed for continuous running, improved efficiency and reduced downtime.
• Reserve hours and increased rest time motivational tools.

In addition to the patterns created, the WORK Suite Scheduling module, with the continued support from Working Time Solutions Ltd, allows Constellation to continue to improve and refine to meet changes to demand in the future, which would allow them to move from a 3 team structure to a 4 team structure with minimal impact to employees, if the situation required.

In 2010, Constellation Park increased their utilisation of Working Time Solutions Ltd, WORKSuite package, by going live with WORKSuite Management Module across the manufacturing base. This new addition allowed Constellation to:

• Monitor hours worked and hours owed (reserve) for 150 employees.
• Ensure exceptions to plan were checked for Working Time Compliance, highlight when not.
• Track these employees within 30 teams for 8 business areas.
• Utilise sub teams effectively for start up of machinery on Sundays.
• Report accurately and in real time a variety of bespoke rota exceptions.
• Allow supervisors to view and amend plans, with minimal administration time.
• Easily apply and track shift swaps between employees when required.
• Assist in the process for ramping up to 5 shift, or down to 3 shift once in 4 shift production.

To find out more about the many services available from Working Time Solutions – including consultancy, software and Lean-ER itself – then please don’t hesitate to contact us or submit an information request and we shall be happy to find out how we can help. All our solutions start with talking and listening: we look forward to beginning the conversation soon.