Packaging Specialist at Coca-Cola Beverages South Africa

Coca-Cola Beverages Africa (CCBA) presents an exciting opportunity for a Packaging Specialist. This is a mid-level person in the Supply Chain division and is a technical expert, who uses their insight to oversee and execute packaging solutions & projects. The successful applicant will report into the Group Specialist: Packaging & Supplier Development.

Coca-Cola Beverages Africa (CCBA) is the largest African Coca-Cola bottler, accounting for 40% of all Coca-Cola volumes on the continent. CCBA has an extensive footprint in Africa, employing over 17 000 employees, serving a combined population of over 300 million people across the continent.

The CCBA vision is to refresh Africa every day and make the continent a better place for all, growing successfully as a business and creating a better shared future for our people, customers, consumers, communities, planet and shareholders. We conduct ourselves with the utmost integrity for shared value and the greater good. We are a world class, customer-orientated, socially and environmentally conscious fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) company that is driven by engaged, motivated and inspired employees.

The Packaging Specialist plays an important role in ensuring that the production of CCBA’s manufactured products is achieved through economically sound and efficient processes that minimise negative environmental impacts while optimising cost and enabling innovation. The employee supports the specification, design, testing, selection, optimisation, and implementation of portfolio-specific packaging solutions for CCBA through their expert and specialised knowledge.

They are responsible for ensuring the design and development & execution of solutions related to their allocated projects are aligned to CCBA’s strategic focus.

This employee is a specialist and takes responsibility for implementing their portfolio of packaging solutions to support the Operations Sustainability agenda with a focus on:

1. Product Innovation
2. Packaging Optimisation
3. Packaging Circularity through the Company’s World Without Waste Program

Key Duties & Responsibilities

• Developing and implementing new and existing packaging materials, improving circularity, and ensuring that CCBA achieves its World Without Waste (WWW) targets.
• Fulfilling a subject matter expertise role by identifying and delivering innovative packaging solutions which meets key business deliverables like margin improvement and improved sustainability solutions.
• Using deep technical skills and relationship with their vendors to evaluate and recommend the adoption of new technology.
• Maintaining a network of peers and external subject matter experts and communities of practices to exchange knowledge and ideas on emerging trends and innovations. 
• Developing, documenting, and managing packaging material standards to support Supply Chain capability & FMEA assessment process to ensure that materials supplied are consistently within the process window of production lines.
• Deploy change management protocols, workflow, and automation for managing change of materials through the business.
• Conducting structured plant visits to problem solve, identify risks and opportunities, and support plant engineering staff.
• Partnering with portfolio specific suppliers to identify and control critical quality input parameters within their processes to ensure that they consistently achieve the required quality outputs to consistently support our processes.
• Leveraging both internal (e.g., Procurement) and external (e.g., Suppliers) relationships and deep technical knowledge to identify business needs that will support the Operations Sustainability strategy and facilitate project approval.
• Defining and scoping the deliverables and engineering details of approved projects with set standards of execution.
• Planning, monitoring, and acting as point of escalation on deployment of projects.
• Working with Multi-disciplinary teams, including in country resources, to ensure successful project execution.
• Working with Procurement to technically assess supplier capability and negotiate and agree contracts including the deliverables, terms, and conditions.
• Supporting major packaging format transition projects where required to contribute towards the fulfillment of the CCBA and Operations Sustainability agenda.
• Monitoring implementation of projects throughout the year and consolidating, tracking, and reporting progress as and when required.
• Mapping, documenting, and improving the current ways of work, and managing change to drive implementation.
• Ensuring that new solutions promote the CCBA objectives and that the solutions meet all quality and compliance standards.
• Managing assigned supplier relationships through structured engagements as stipulated in the Supplier Partnering Program with a focus on improving supplier reliability and reducing their cost base.
• Working with procurement and the quality team to identify and assess the capability of new suppliers.
• Conducting supplier reviews and accreditations and assisting with the onboarding of alternate / local suppliers.
• Comparing key supplier Carbon Footprints to modelled numbers and establish an improvement program with targets and incentives for suppliers.
• Supporting the continuous improvement of allocated suppliers via the Supplier Partnering Program.
• Ensuring alternative packaging options and suppliers specific to their materials focus are identified to secure business continuity.
• Monitoring implementation of projects throughout the year and consolidating, tracking, and reporting progress as and when required.
• Budgets/cost management on relevant projects.
• Contributing inputs, analytics, and insights for the compilation of reports on performance metrics.
• Contributing inputs, analytics, and insights to comply with corporate, regulatory, and legislative requirements.

Skills, Experience & Education

Qualifications:

• The minimum qualification for this job is a Bachelor of Science Degree in Sciences or Engineering (Polymer Science, Mechanical, Chemical, or related engineering science) or convincing equivalent experience with a degree level qualification.

Experience:

• 5+ years’ experience in the bottling or plastics conversion industry is essential