AG Barr Trek, March 2015

25 March 2015

A group of us (HRM and Management students) went on a trek to AG Barr’s Head Office situated in North Lanarkshire. Before starting the tour, we were asked to put away any food items we had brought with us that contain nuts, as we would be visiting their factory and they wanted to ensure the quality and safety of their products.

We were then split into two groups to visit the warehouse and the production line. On the way to their warehouse, we walked passed the room in which the Irn Bru essence is made then shipped to different production sites. As we stepped into the warehouse, I was astonished by what I saw. Crates and crates of AG Barr products stacked on top of each other with a height of 14 floors. We were told that the products are all managed automatically to enhance efficiency. We were lucky enough to see those machines in action.

We were then taken over to the other room where AG Barr stores its recycled glasses. However, we were told that those glasses can be reused up to three times but they aren’t receiving as much as they used to. It was still really interesting for me to see this side of a company that reduces, reuses and recycles. We then went to visit the part of the warehouse where crates of products are organised and categorised, ready to be sent to customers. There were different forklift trucks going in and out of the warehouse staking up items.

We were then taken to the head office, where the management teams are situated; there was a very harmonised and nice dynamic going on in the office. They have clear goals listed on the board and numbers constantly updating and informing the employees of their progress inside the warehouse. There are also cameras in almost every corner and this allows people from the office to see clearly what is wrong when the computer signals a red light and the problem can be spotted and solved more efficiently.

Moving on to the production line, we were told to put on hairnets and remove all the jewellery we had on, again ensuring health and safety in their work place and products. We were shown how the bottles were made, filled, how the labels were put on and how the machines stacked the products. The production line operates 24 hours a day and they have engineers on standby just in case an emergency happens. It was fascinating to see a truly automated production line in action. They also have engineers working on cooling down the temperature inside the factory so the workers there can have better working conditions.

Afterwards, we were taken to a conference room and given a thorough presentation in regards to Human resources management and Organisation development procedures. It was interesting to see how the theories and models we learned in class translate to practical policies and actions in real life. I was surprised to learn that Irn-Bru has been the most popular soft drink in Scotland for many years and even exceeds the popularity of Coca-Cola.

Although AG Barr has been in the market for 140 years, they’re still very eager to move and expand into international markets. They have succession plans for key functions when it comes to developing talent and adopt job rotation technique to maintain low turnover rate. In addition, they launched a behavioural change scheme in 2012 after conducting many focus groups, employee surveys, and senior management meetings that resulted in four distinctive behaviours in which they think represents the core value and culture of AG Barr. They encourage these four behaviours internally by hanging posters around the factory and externally through recruitment and selection. The result of this was seen in their annual employee survey with an increase in employee engagement as well as growth in profit. Moreover, I think the Barr behaviour could benefit not just people working in AG Barr but everyone of us as well.

Be Brilliant, Always Learning, Results Driven, and Relationship Building.

Susie Wei and Weiyu Chen