Orora Limited has been ranked number 36 in this year’s BRW 50 Most Innovative Companies. It is the highest placed packaging company and one of only eight manufacturing companies to be included in the list.
“Orora strives to be an innovative customer-led packaging company, with a relentless focus on safety, and we are delighted that the BRW Most Innovative Companies awards recognise this,” said Nigel Garrard, managing director and chief executive officer of Orora Limited.
Organisations were judged on two significant innovations introduced in the previous twelve months, as well as their innovation processes, resources, measurement and alignment with business strategy.
BRW defines innovation as ’change that adds value’. These are the achievements that made Orora stand out:
Orora’s investment into an offline can decorator and in-house print plate production has enabled artwork to proceed to finished production quality samples within hours. Previously, the process previously required customers to wait during gaps in production scheduling and attend the particular production site – and, typically, took two weeks or more. Orora has enabled a capability and process for beverage cans that is the most advanced of its type in the southern hemisphere and offers great efficiency, value and convenience for our customers.
The awards also recognised Orora’s employee-led ‘I commit’ health and safety program at its carton manufacturing plant in Heidelberg, Victoria. ‘I commit’ is designed to address workplace injuries – in particular sprains and strains – among an ageing workforce, by changing mindsets, creating a healthy workplace, improving work life balance and achieving zero injuries. A plant-wide engagement program included seasonal health and safety checks, gifts and reminders, and an on-site health fair with access to health and medical experts. Risk reduction initiatives included using sports science to map body muscular-skeletal dynamics and redesign at-risk tasks and a health, wellbeing and injury prevention centre opened on site, with access to individual program design and monitoring.
Since its implementation, 50% of employees are consistently participating in the program and the strain and sprain injuries have decreased by 50%, while the site has achieved a zero injury ‘recordable frequency rate’ (RCFR) for the first time. Importantly, the program has also improved a number of people’s lives across the team including weight reduction, smoking cessation, reduced blood pressure and in one instance detected a potentially life threatening condition through health profiling.
