Grant: Applied Research and Development Grants - Level 1

industry. Traditionally, the global cider industry has been mostly controlled by well-established international producers suchas Strongbow and Somersby, as well as North American producers such as Molson and Labatt Keiths. However, Ontario iswell positioned for a competitive advantage in this industry due to the location for apple production.Since the County Cider Company began, they have been growing at a staggering rate and are proving to be a competitor tobig name cider production companies. The company is continually showing a 10-20% increase in sales each year,however demand for the product is exceeding the companys ability to package and distribute to meet the customer anddistributor requirements. The company is experiencing a high level of variability due to the manual methods used forconveying and measuring raw materials in addition to their production line not operating in an efficient manner. To remaincompetitive in the market, County Cider Company needs to produce more products without increasing costs, staff or productprice and this project will help to solve these challenges.The focus of the project is to increase the companies process efficiencies in order to remain competitive with the otherproducers. This project will be embedded into the Manufacturing Engineering Technician program at Loyalist College, wherestudents will be given the opportunity to work alongside a local industry partner on a ""real world"" challenge. The project willinclude three phases which will include introducing innovative technologies and process improvements while eliminatingmanual components.The first phase of the project will provide County Cider Company with a process map depicting theproduct sequences and isolating areas of waste and allow for streamlining of work processes. The second phase of thisproject will address a dangerous task that is a major component of their process, where the empty cider bottles are currentlybeing hand placed onto the production line conveyor by a single employee. Not only is this dangerous, but the fully manualprocess only allows 30 bottles to be placed per minute. Through mechanical design the students will be challenged with thedigital creation of an entire bottle loading machine that will eliminate the manual process entirely. The third phase of theproject will be the automation of material flow. Currently the procedure used to convey raw and processed material is highlymanual and subject to variability. The lack of an automated system is preventing the company from becoming as efficientand productive as possible. The objective of automating the material movement will be to allow for the company torepeatedly and easily convey raw, semi-finished, and finished product around the production facility via touch screen humanmachine interface.County Cider Company will see immediate impact from this project after implementation through an increase in profitability,by not only being able to meet all existing order, but being able to expand their customer base and increase orders. Thisproject will provide the company a foundation of electro mechanical utilization for increasing profit and reducingnonconformance, which they will in turn be able to implement over time throughout their facility. This will be a large step inthe continuous improvement efforts at County Cider Company and will provide them with a much more efficient productioncapability, and as a result, allow them to grow and pursue larger and more contracts, proving to stay competitive in the ciderproduction industry.