Company profile

tter) plants
From mother plants to exporting cuttings to their final destination
Athenas mother plants are grown in a closed off greenhouse. Here 5 - 25 plants of each variety are kept clean in stock and are tested 100% against viruses. The same workers are designated to this area, and do not go to other sections of the company during the day, taking care of all the tasks in this area. New plants that are received from international labs as 100% virus-free tissue, are still double-checked by sampling upon arrival. At the final production greenhouses, in order to control plant growth, either white polyethylene plastic is used in the greenhouse cover or whiteout is applied to maintain a steady 24 W/ m2 of global radiation coming in, thus avoiding bud formation. Growth regulators can also be used to curb internode stretch, without affecting plant behaviour or yield. The homemade growth media recipe calls for peat, pine bark, sand and perlite, and its disinfection is done with an 80o C steam for 45 minutes. As the bar-coded plastic bags are filled with cuttings by each worker with the varieties for different orders, they are checked by sampling their weight, size, number of leaves, and stem size or thickness. In this way the error percentage of all employees is constantly assessed, and if it deviates too much (or a little for too long) the worker has to go through a recycling for that task. Totals are checked per bag, and then per box. Each bag is filled with a standard, and free 6% surplus as cover for any shipment damage or count error. A customer satisfaction fulfilment quality indicator is closely monitored, so that any problems can be back-tracked to its origin. The idea is to determine whether it occurred before or after the farm gate, then corrected, and inserted in the process protocol to avoid repetition. Once harvested, cuttings are pre-cooled in the greenhouse, and then sent to the cooler, where its final preparation takes place. Shipment boxes are iced if necessary; the temperature forecast in the US, which is monitored via the Internet, state where they will be sent to. This also determines whether double insulation, or an ethylene blocker will be needed. The target is to maintain 5o C inside the box. Cuttings are then trucked to So Paulo and flown to Miami, where a dispatcher collects them. After customs and inspections are cleared they are sent to their final destinations. Shipment causes a total percentage of 0,3% of customer complaints. As shipping is the main cause of complaints by customers last year, control of the after gate part of the process is the next step to improve quality.

EU and US spring, plus the strategic partnerships to distribute their plants adequately. However, according to the owners, its driving engine lies in a workforce that peaked at 250 employees this year. Aware of their labourdependent business model, and not a technology-intensive one, the philosophy has been to capitalise on that. Since the company started-up, a psychologist was hired to test candidates and to coach them on the importance of team work. More importantly, the psychologist was part of the team who set up protocols for all products, as well as job descriptions. Based on that, the necessary skills for each job could be determined and this info

was then fed back into the hiring process. The aim was to maximise the chance of hiring the right person for the right job - and to keep them motivated. At the end of that project the company found itself with 60 protocols, but that didnt mean that management was barricaded behind a pile of paperwork. Anatriello explained, We have meet with the director sessions once a month - when the employees can talk directly to us sometimes there are issues that they may not want to share with their direct supervisors. Naturally we respect everybodys authority, but its important that the workers know they can talk to us about anything. Plus, Athenas chain of com-

mand is pretty flat anyway.

Heighten sense of teamwork

Proper cutting production is basically a matter of sticking to hygiene and production procedures. In order to maintain employees who are motivated to do just that when nobody is watching, a series of actions are taken to heighten the sense of teamwork. There are weekly quality meetings, irrespective of the response from customers, to see where things can be improved and to keep everybody involved. We have open house days when it comes to days such as Fathers and Mothers Day, so employees can bring their children to the workplace. Every 3 months

we have lectures on a subject that can be of use to everyone from shopping saving tips to disease prevention. Throughout the year we have fairs, a type of game day, where we divide up in teams to play sports, or do activities such as theatre, added Anatriello. Another strong motivational point is an exchange programme where Athena sends workers to Europe and the US to see how their products behave at the customers greenhouses. One or two employees are sent every year to work in different customers operations, and to see the finished product in their market. Its a valuable and fun experience where regular workers, not

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FlowerTECH 2007, vol. 10/no. 6

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