Industry 4.0: Revolutionising manufacturing
Guangdong Enpack Packaging Co. (Enpack) has combined acquisition strategy and investment in Industry 4.0 to become a leading supplier of easy open ends (EOE) in China. IRIS ARSIC speaks to TIM CLARKE, CEO of the company’s trade office in Europe, about how the company has captured benefits of building smart factories.
Enpack at a glance
Acquisitions have played a vital role in Enpack’s growth in China’s EOE market. These were “strategic and timely in terms of the company’s journey”, Clarke says. Founded in 2006, it floated its shares on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, one of the two major bourses in the Chinese mainland, in early 2017. It has since snapped up three entities, which have propelled Enpack to new heights. “All three were manufacturers of different EOE. One was the biggest POE maker in China, the second a beverage can ends supplier, and the third a producer of aluminum EOE for dry food such as
nuts, nuts powder.” The acquisitions
have paved the way for Enpack “to dominate the peel off ends (POE) and dry food aluminum EOE market in China and to step into the beverage can ends field,” Clarke explains. The company reported full-year turnover of $200 million in 2022. In the same year, it produced 15 billion beverage can ends, 8 billion food can ends, and 1 billion peel-off ends. Today, it has three production sites,
namely in China’s southern port city of Shantou in Guangdong province, where it is headquartered, in Yangzhou, east China’s Jiangsu province, and Weifang, east-central Shandong sheng province.
Unlocking the potential of Industry 4.0
2019 was an important year for Enpack in more ways than one. It marked the beginning of its growth strategy
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metalpackager.com
through the acquisitions and building a smart factory in Yangzhou. The factory, which specialises in beverage can ends, marked Enpack’s transition to Industry 4.0. Also known as the fourth industrial revolution we are currently experiencing, Industry 4.0 is powered by integrating technologies such as cloud computing, Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. A digitally enabled factory, Enpack’s
Yangzhou production site is highly automated, data-driven in real time, and fully connected to supply chains, all aimed at manufacturing optimisation. With “off-the-shelf” equipment,
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