Bayer unveils $6.5M investment for agrochem plant expansion in Canada

Bayer CropScience is officially unveiling its $6.5 million expansion at its Regina plant at 295 Henderson Dr.
 

The new state-of-the-art "fill and pack" lines will make the Regina plant the largest in the Bayer CropScience system for the formulating, filling and packaging of agricultural chemicals - including the well-known herbicide Liberty.
 

"The investment in our Regina formulation, filling and packaging facility is a logical step in our strategic journey," said Kamel Beliazi, president and CEO of Bayer CropScience Inc. "It reinforces our commitment to Canadian agriculture and providing Canadian growers with innovative solutions to tackle the challenge of feeding the world."
 

Plans for the expansion were launched in 2011 with the view of making the Regina plant, which was built by a predecessor company in the early 1980s, a "worldclass" facility. But the real work began in July, with installation of new automated equipment to make the filling and packaging of herbicide and treated seed more efficient.
 

"It's been a busy several months," said Dianna Emperingham, director of product supply for Bayer Crop-Science in Regina. "Just the logistics, procuring all the equipment, negotiating all the contracts to get the equipment in place, 'teaching' the equipment to work together," Emperingham said in an interview earlier this week. "The exciting part is that we were able to bring in the best technologies for all the different steps in the (filling and packaging) process."
 

While the new facility utilizes technology employed at other Bayer CropScience plants, some of the new filling and packing machines are being used for the first time in Regina. "In some cases - the hooding equipment (which wraps the pallets of herbicide containers in a protective sheath of plastic) - we're the first plant in Bayer to use that technology," said the native of Rouleau, who has worked for the company for 24 years.
 

The robotic machines and conveyor systems, purchased mainly from Europe and the U.S., are designed to reduce the number of steps in the process of filling and packaging the chemicals. Those steps can add up when you're producing 30 million litres across 40 different product lines, including 8.1 million kilograms of treated seeds, every year.
 

Before the expansion, Emperingham said the plant had 140 people working in 161,000 square feet of space and "96 forklift movements an hour." After the expansion, the number of employees is still 140 and the square footage is the same, but the number of forklift movements has been reduced to zero in some areas of the plant.
 

With the reduction in repetitive work, "job satisfaction is going to increase certainly," Emperingham added.
 

The workplace should be safer too, although it would be hard to improve on Bayer CropScience's safety record. "We've actually got a very impressive safety record here - more than three years at this site with no time-loss injuries," she said.
 

Emperingham said the filling and packing expansion is just one of a number of projects on the drawing board for Bayer CropScience in Regina. "We're certainly doing some expansion again in 2015 in terms of our formulation. We've set up a plan so that we will be doing something every year out to 2017-18 so we can ... support the agricultural market moving forward."