12 December 2022

A flexible production tool, adapted to customers’ needs

Interview with Eric Lefebvre, Supply Chain Director

Could you introduce yourself and your job at TOURNAIRE?

I am responsible for the Supply Chain. The Supply Chain consists of optimising incoming and outgoing flows. At Tournaire, the specificity is that the Supply Chain Manager is also in charge of the whole production aspect. In the end, it’s a question of making all the flows more fluid, whether they are incoming raw materials within production and finally, up to the delivery of the goods to our customers. I have been working for TOURNAIRE for 30 years, starting in 1994 as a trainee.

Tell us more about TOURNAIRE’s production tool.

The specific features of the production tool are that it is highly automated with standardised ranges. In spite of this automation, we wanted to keep a flexible production tool so as to respond as well as possible to the expectations of our customers, both in terms of finishes, types of closures and packaging. So it’s a state-of-the-art industrial tool, automated, but flexible to meet our customers’ expectations.
So the production tool, over all these years, has greatly evolved by integrating new technologies, such as robotics and vision. Vision: either at the level of the processes to allow the taking of our products, or at the level of the controls.
It is important to know that today each production line, whether it is for extruded or deep-drawn products, we have three in-line controls which allow 100% control of our bottles. In terms of figures, we carry out more than 60 million checks per year on our production lines.

What are the specificities of the TOURNAIRE supply chain?

The specificity of the logistics chain is that we are dealing with large structures upstream and downstream. We have relatively large suppliers, of considerable size, whether in aluminium or plastic. We have relatively low labour margins. We try, by setting up a substantial, targeted safety stock, with refined commercial forecasts, with a maximum of storage of raw materials to always provide our customers with more services and never be short of raw materials.
For example, during the COVID crisis, we can pride ourselves on having been a company that never stopped its production tool to deliver our customers.

Have you obtained any new certifications in recent years?

We are now aiming for ISO 45001 certification, to have a consolidated quality, environment and safety system. In addition to these ISO commitments, we are also committed to a CSR approach where we have obtained the Gold label of ECOVADIS certification.

Why join TOURNAIRE?

Working at TOURNAIRE means having the opportunity to explore many technologies, many techniques, much know-how, and to join a company on a human scale, with many projects and much dynamism. I recommend you to join us, it’s exciting.