Taking a standardised approach to water management

KP Snacks, a manufacturer of many well-known snack brands, has worked with Biochemica, now part Veolia Water Technologies UK (VWT UK), since 2014. VWT provides a wide range of water treatment services to KP Snacks including boiler water and effluent treatment chemicals, legionella control and risk assessment, water system cleaning and disinfection in addition to water hygiene inspections.

VWT has been working with KP Snacks to standardise its processes and service delivery across each of the seven KP sites across the country. The water management processes had evolved based on the requirements of each site, including three new factories that had been acquired since the contract was awarded eight years ago. This meant there were significant variations between the different sites. While the KP Snacks team had not encountered any particular issues, it was agreed that improvements could be made through standardisation.

One of the technologies that has been introduced as part of the standardisation is an online  electronic logbook. The barcode-based system allows all relevant assets and equipment on each site to be tagged. These tags are then scanned during routine service visits, simplifying the inputting of the data and results. It also enables tasks to be automatically scheduled. For example, when a shower is cleaned and disinfected as part of the legionella control measures, the next quarterly disinfection is automatically scheduled. 

KP Snacks site teams are also able to use the system to manage and monitor their own weekly and monthly tasks and record the results on the same platform. This not only helps to streamline the previously time-consuming processes but also enhances compliance reporting

In addition, rolling out this technology across all sites provides comparable data that can be viewed as required depending on the user. Each site team can view the collated data for its assets while those at group level, such as the health and safety team, can see the relevant data from all sites. The VWT team can also view and track all the results to help improve its service.

Commenting on the project, Alison Sydenham, category manager: Non-Food at KP Snacks, said: “For us the benefits are clear. Firstly, it reduces the number of suppliers that we need to deal with, providing us with a single point of contact for all our water treatment and management. This has helped us to consolidate our processes and also achieve time and efficiency savings by eliminating unnecessary tasks. Finally, it has allowed us to make comparisons between sites, enabling further improvements and the sharing of best practice among teams.” 

Sandra Rountree, national contract manager at VWT UK, said: “For businesses that have complex requirements spanning multiple sites, processes can evolve that work well for each site but may create inefficiencies when dealing with group wide considerations such as compliance and health and safety. What we have been able to achieve with KP Snacks shows the benefits of close collaboration and a long term partnership.”