Day 10 - Huhtamaki Visit

It's Tuesday and I'm taking a side trip today to visit my company site in Nules, Spain. We make packaging and food containers and have a site not far from where we are staying in Barcelona.  While in Spain, I wanted to be sure I had an opportunity to check this out. Our fearless leaders were also supportive of students making this kind of visit if they were able. So I decided to venture out on my own for a day.

The train ticket I purchased on Monday is for this trip. By Euromed train, the website says this should be about a 2 hour and 15 minute train ride to the Valencia station, where I will be picked up by taxi and driven to the plant site. I get up early to catch the Mitre train from the station near our hotel before it's light outside. I switch trains a few stops later, and end up getting off at a main hub station where I am able to catch the Euromed. This hub station is huge and there is a lot of hustle and bustle and people going every direction. I found a station employee and asked where I needed to go in Spanish and she was able to guide me to the stairs down to the Euromed platform. My ticket has an assigned seat, so I look for my coach and find my assigned place and settle in for the ride.

Traveling by Euromed is different from the Mitre trains in Barcelona. The seats are bigger, a movie plays and the attendants come through offering amenities for the passengers. There is also a separate dining car if you get hungry.

The train ride down the coast was beautiful while the sun was rising. On one side of the train, there is the beautiful Mediterranean Sea with the sun shining over it. On the other side of the train, there were orange groves for miles and miles with mountains behind. This is my kind of ride. I would have loved to have taken some photos of this ride, however my seat was on the aisle and taking pictures would have meant crawling over my neighbors to get to the window and attracting attention to the fact that I was a tourist, as if it wasn't already obvious... I drew in as much as I could by observing :).

Orange groves as far as you can see.
Oranges are a winter crop and it is
almost harvest time in this region. 

When we arrived at the train station, I was a little apprehensive, not knowing how I would identify my taxi from the others. I walked up the stairs and to the front doors of the station, looking for a yellow taxi like the ones I had seen in Barcelona. I saw none. What I did see were several nice looking cars, then I saw the sleek silver Mercedes with the Huhtamaki logo on a sheet of paper in the front window with a snappy dressed guy standing next to it. Ok, let's go! Fernando introduced himself to me and we got into the car for the drive to Nules. It was only about twenty minutes, so we chatted on our way there. I saw more orange groves as we drove by, and I couldn't take it any more so I asked Fernando to pardon me while I behaved like a tourist and took some pictures. What a beautiful drive.

the mountains

Fernando and I made communication work, I worked with limited Spanish, and he with limited but better English than my Spanish. He works for himself and only works with corporate clients at factories like ours. He tells me that I am his only pick up of the day, so he can take me anywhere I need to go after I am done. Not a bad gig, driving a nice Mercedes and having such a flexible schedule. He tells me that the road we are taking used to be a highway through the city of Nules that used to be a bigger town. The highway was rerouted, so the town has seen some of the changes that this rerouting has brought. It is no longer as bustling, but still a charming little European town. Very definitely looks like Spain. I love it.

We pull up to the plant and Fernando says goodbye after pulling right up to the front door. I introduce myself and the Plant Manager, Frank Candries, comes and greets me in the lobby. I will be spending the day with Frank, Blas Gonzales, Engineering Director, and Jose Luis Dominguez, Manufacturing Manager. I meet with all three gentlemen to start my visit in Frank's conference room where I get some history of the plant and an outline of products made at the Nules plant. Frank tells me that we will meet for lunch at 1:30 and notes it may seem like a long time before lunch to my American eating habits :).

I then get a detailed plant tour from Jose Luis Dominguez. We put on our overjackets and hair nets, and I am given a pair of steel toed boots (about 3 sizes too big for my kid sized feet), and safety goggles to enter the production area after we scrub our hands clean. This site produces food grade containers, so cleanliness is critical. The plant tour was very interesting. It was cool to see the equipment and how it was similar or not so similar to some of our equipment and how this plant is set up. We see the plastics manufacturing areas and the paperboard areas as well. Another area I was able to see was the graphics area. I took pictures, but will not be posting these as they contain proprietary information.

When finished with the tour, I meet with Engineering Director, Blas Gonzales. We go over the process of product development from start to finish. Typically this process starts with a customer need, for which the team at Huhtamaki develops a solution that is cost effective and meets the customer's need. We also look at several examples of prototypes and items that have been created for customers. It was interesting to see the differences in European design from those that we make at our DeSoto, KS facility.

After I met with Blas, we met up with Jose Luis and Frank and went to lunch in the town of Nules. The place we ate was a family owned restaurant and Frank tells me that it's been tradition for them to come eat here for the past 12 years or so. The server was pleasant as she seated us. I noticed the Iberica hams hanging from the ceiling as we walked in and Frank ordered some as a part of our meal. The meal consisted of the appetizers: the Iberica ham and a community salad that we shared, along with some toasty bread with the pureed tomatoes on it. I had a bean soup for my first course and then a yummy white fish for the main course. Jose Luis apparently loves pig's foot and this happened to be one of the specials of the day. When it came out it looked like, well a pig's foot. I watched as he meticulously dissected the pig's foot before savoring every bit that he had gotten off of the bones. 

During our lunch, we talked about their tradition of coming for lunch together. Frank noted that their schedules were so busy that if they didn't take this time to come eat together, they would never talk. He also mentioned how important it was to spend the time getting to know your coworkers well and to spend time with them outside of the workplace. He said that the long lunch hours also enabled them to be sure their food gets digested right... a big difference from the many lunches I have eaten at my desk over the years because of a busy schedule. It was a good reminder to me to stop and take the time to eat lunch and to spend time with coworkers. 

After lunch, we went back to the office where I did some studying and the others had meetings to get to due to audits that were going on. It was a great experience and I'm glad I could have the opportunity to spend time with these gentlemen and learn about this facility. Fernando was soon there to take me back to the train station and we did some more chatting on the way there. When we stopped this time, though, he got out of the car and opened my door. I put out my hand to shake his and say thank you and he shook my hand but then I got a very European goodbye with a kiss on each cheek. Caught me off guard, but hey, when in Rome... 

Got back to the hotel around 9:30 or so and by this time it was too late to meet up with the others who had gone to dinner with the Cisco group, so I relaxed and got ready to head to bed a little early after a very full day.