Sustainability report 2021/22

Constant and consistent reliability

Quality and innovation management with the focus on sustainability

KHS develops and manufactures filling and packaging systems with a consistently high demand for quality. Here, reliability and durability are key pillars in our system of quality management. With an eye to the future, our developments help to meet customer demands for reduced container weights and the use of environmentally-friendly materials. Strict quality controls ensure that our machines leave the factory in perfect condition and can be immediately commissioned whatever their global destination.

Assuring, promoting and constantly optimizing quality

Our Quality Management Department centrally controls all aspects of process and product quality for all of the machines and components manufactured at our production sites. The internal and external audits regularly carried out at all of our plants are a key factor here. The above department is also responsible for annual certification in accordance with ISO 9001 that is held by all of our factories. It is expected that our most recent production facility in Kunshan, China, will receive ISO 9001 certification in the course of 2023.  

These system-relevant specifications form the basis for the design of our products. Our promise of performance and our own aspiration in relation to the sustainable quality of our products is supported here by numerous operative measures and thus ensured in the long term. We supervise our suppliers and check the high quality demands made of them at regular intervals. We can specifically identify the demands and expectations of our customers through regular workshops, personal talks and a methodical complaints management system. In turn, these targets define our continuous improvement process that is designed to increase the level of quality of our products.  

As a permanent partner to Quality Management, our Process Management Department is also instrumental in promoting the further development of our company on both a national and international level with the help of process models and organizations. The process risk analyses performed in this context are used to document and define risk minimization measures.  

Firm focus on customers 

The wishes and demands our customers have of our machines and other products and fast-changing laws and directives in the call for greater sustainability specify our targets for quality assurance.  

KHS carries out regular surveys and holds joint workshops with its customers to this end. The topics covered include sustainability criteria and demands, technology, market conditions and market trends. Our participation in trade shows and industry meetings and an active exchange of information with our Key Account Management help us to identify the quality demands that will be made of filling and packaging systems in the future. KHS offers customers over 130 different standard conversion scenarios designed to keep their existing machinery up to date with various modernization measures so that they can produce cost-effectively with an efficient use of resources for many, many years. 

Developments based on decades of experience 

In its long company history KHS has introduced a great number of reliable and sustainable new and further developments for the beverage industry. Our mission to this very day is to continue to do so: our aim is to supply intelligent product systems with maximum product quality that our customers can depend on in the long term. This is only possible thanks to our R&D management system that has its own steering committees and is firmly anchored at key levels of the company, such as in the Executive Management Board, Product Development, Sales, Purchasing and Controlling. These bodies regularly coordinate on current development projects, targets and procedures to ensure that the system is successfully implemented.  

The significance of digitalization with all of its many different aspects continues to grow here. With it we can provide intelligent system solutions and further optimize the overall efficiency of our plant engineering. These include devices for greater operator safety, expansions and longer life cycles. This means that our projects are always closely monitored from approval to completion and assessed from a number of different perspectives with regard to time, cost and quality. An annual R&D roadmap is also drawn up by Technology and Sales to help coordinate and plan future activities. Our employees are regularly trained to ensure that these processes are permanently implemented and are informed of the procedures to be complied with. 

For each project idea we prepare a holistic business case well in advance which is used to subject our idea to intense scrutiny from an economic angle before it is actually realized. Following its launch, the project is presented on a regular basis and examined for any criteria that would result in its termination. 

We not only make sure that resources and capacities are specifically assigned but also that the project is both marketable and future-proof; we do so by studying ideas and development projects extremely carefully from the very beginning and throughout the entire development process. 

We also fall back on expertise from external research facilities and institutes and on invitations to tender issued by ministries at federal and regional level that we refer to on an individual project basis if R&D topics can be pursued better and more efficiently with the help of such partners.  

Example central R&D projects in the reporting period

Process monitoring 

  • InnoPET iflex: increased line efficiency through much shorter changeover times. 

Energy and resource efficiency

Efficiency and performance