6 months ago
23
Backed by a big bank loan, Jamaica Packaging Industries Limited has upgraded its machinery and moved into new operating space that could see the company tripling its output.
Country Manager Gary Cole said the complex, spanning 74,000 square feet, allows for the consolidation of manufacturing, distribution, and retail sales operations at a single site.
“The building itself that houses the corrugator is much bigger, but importantly, it allows us to consolidate our operations on one site,” Cole said.
JPI previously operated from two premises in Kingston: Marcus Garvey Drive and Ashenheim Road. The new base is at Spanish Town Road, in the vicinity of Six Miles, near the Kingston and St Catherine border.
Its new home is a former bottling plant that had been idle for several years.
Denise Gallimore, vice president of real estate and infrastructure of Eppley Limited, said the company’s total investment in the property was about US$5 million. The money was used to acquire the land and buildings and to do upgrades.
“The Spanish Town Road area is important to all of us,” said Gallimore.
But due to the poor road condition, “it took a lot of convincing” to get a company like JPI to take up space at the property, she said.
The factory relocation project was supported by a loan of US$8 million from Scotiabank Jamaica for the procurement and installation of new machinery.
“Our involvement was the financing of the upgrade of the plant to expand their capacity to manufacture and we also had some early involvement. We have a comprehensive banking relationship with the Jamaica Packaging Industries. We are very pleased with the management of the business,” said President and CEO of Scotia Group Jamaica Audrey Tugwell Henry, who told the Financial Gleaner that Jamaica Packaging and Scotiabank have had a longstanding relationship.
Cole said the new facility is equipped with a modern corrugator, a high-speed folder gluer machine capable of high-quality printing, slotting, glueing and folding of cartons in a single pass; a modern die-cut machine designed to produce complex display cartons and display trays; and an effluent treatment plant.
JPI Operations Manager Oswin Thomas said the new corrugator can reach line speeds of 250 metres per minute, more than double that of the previous machine that had a top speed of 120 metres per minute.
It can also transform even lower grade paper into sturdier structural boxes, compared to the previous corrugator, Thomas told the Financial Gleaner.
Speaking ahead of the commissioning, Cole said the investment in new machines will more than double the production capacity at JPI.
“Combined, these technologies form the very backbone of our production and have immediately increased our production capacity by over 250 per cent; that’s right, 250 per cent increase in production capacity,” Cole said.
Further improvements should push the capacity increase to 300 per cent, he said.
Established in October 1954, Jamaica Packaging’s original factory operated from 214 Marcus Garvey Drive, with an annex at the rear of that premises along Ashenheim Road. Later its address changed to 154 Marcus Garvey Drive, near Newport West.
After the dismantling and the sale of 214 Marcus Garvey Drive, the annex was retained as a warehouse, while the company acquired Corrpak Jamaica in October 2016 to produce corrugated paper and cardboard boxes.
Jamaica Packaging eventually outgrew the 44,000-square-foot facility, forcing the company to utilise a repurposed gas station adjoining the 154 Marcus Garvey Drive location to store the huge rolls of paper used as raw material, Cole said.
The section of Spanish Town Road between Weymouth Drive and Six Miles that houses the new JPI plant is notoriously bumpy, resulting from the soft subsurface and occasional flooding. Even as final preparations for the commissioning ceremony were under way, a roadwork crew was observed doing drain-cleaning work at the front gate and in the vicinity of the JPI plant.
Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness was at the commissioning ceremony to officially pull the switch on the new plant.
“We’re happy to hear that the prime minister is giving a commitment in that way, to work with the private sector to upgrade and improve the road,” said Gallimore.
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