Tag Archives: preventive maintenance

Emily Newton, Revolutionized Magazine
FST Soapbox

How to Improve Food Processing Efficiency

By Emily Newton
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Emily Newton, Revolutionized Magazine

For food processors, efficiency can be a major asset. Cutting production times and improving kitchen throughput is one of the best ways to reduce costs and boost profits. In recent years, new management strategies and a range of technologies—like Industry 4.0—has transformed how business owners manage their facilities, including food processing plants. This means there is a range of new, efficiency-improving tools available for businesses that want to streamline plant processes and better manage their operations. The strategies and investments are some of the best possible ways for food processors to improve their plant’s efficiency.

1. Take Advantage of Industry 4.0 Technology

Over the past few years, the digital transformation of industries has resulted in a wide range of products, platforms and devices that can help streamline facility operations and workflows.

Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) sensors, for example, are Internet-connected sensors that collect a wide range of real-time data from site processes. This data can help food processors improve their bottom lines in a few different ways—like by providing better data on food safety or providing real-time quality control.

For example, IIoT sensors can be used to keep an eye on equipment performance and machine health. An air pressure sensor, installed at the right place in an HVAC duct, can provide valuable notice on blockages and damaged filters. When air pressure drops dramatically, it is typically a sign of some kind of blockage in the HVAC system. This advanced notice can help you fix the HVAC system quicker, potentially saving money and preventing dust or other contaminants from reducing facility air quality.

These IIoT systems also make it much easier to collect information about a facility. This information can help unlock insights about workflows, processes and site layouts, allowing changes that make a facility even more efficient.

For example, you may be able to gather hard data on how an individual product or product line influences machine timing—or how production of a particular item may slow down throughput or make workers less efficient. This information can help you adjust site processes, simplifying the workflow for products that put more strain on your facility, or cutting those products entirely in favor of simpler-to-produce items.

2. Use Efficient Equipment and Materials

Equipment choice can have a major impact on the overall efficiency of a facility. Even small choices—like the lightbulbs used or HVAC filters installed—can add up over time, reducing a facility’s energy bill and contributing to a more comfortable working environment.

Filter choice, for example, is especially important at plants that process a significant amount of wastewater or similar fluids. Good filtration is necessary to remove dangerous chemicals and contaminants from wastewater, but not all filter materials are made equal. Some perform much better than others—and this cost efficiency can have a major impact on a long enough timescale.

EPDM, for example, is an FDA-approved food-grade rubber and a common gasket material for equipment used in industrial kitchens and other food processing plants. It is also a common filter material. However, EPDM filters have a tendency to swell and suffer from performance issues over time. They may require more regular maintenance, which could negatively impact the productivity of a filtration system. PTFE membranes, in contrast, don’t have the same drawbacks.

Making simple adjustments—finding the right kind of filter or LED bulb— can help reduce maintenance costs and improve facility energy efficiency. Often, these changes can happen without major adjustments to the underlying equipment or workflows that keep the factory moving. These upgrades are a great place to start if you want to see how smaller tweaks and adjustments impact facility efficiency before moving on to more major changes.

3. Find Ways to Conserve Water

Similarly, food processing plants can save significantly by finding ways to reduce the amount of water they consume. Water is often seen as a free commodity in food processing plants—but consumption of water can become a significant expense at scale. Equipment, practices and machinery that help reduce water usage can be a way to cut down on costs while making the plant a little more eco-friendly.

Simple changes can make a notable difference without requiring new equipment. For example, some plants may be able to begin cleaning floors and equipment with sweeping or mopping rather than hoses. Mobile sweepers can cover large areas, like parking lots, that can’t be swept with manual labor alone. In one example, Bartter Industries, a New South Wales-based poultry product manufacturer, was able to reduce its water consumption by 10,000 liters a day (approximately 2,640 gallons) by switching from hosing to mopping and sweeping.

More extensive equipment and facility upgrades can yield more significant results.

Increasing the efficiency of water usage may also help future-proof a plant. Industrial water and sewage rates have risen significantly over the past two decades. Water insecurity and droughts may drive these prices higher in the near future.

Many major food production companies—including Pepsi-Cola and Coca-Cola—are already in the process of investing major amounts of money in water reuse and conservation technology.

Adopting similar technology and practices at your facility can provide a valuable competitive advantage now and help in the future when water reuse and stringent water conservation policies are more common.

4. Upgrade Your Maintenance Plan

Scheduled maintenance is one of the most commonly used maintenance approaches. Having such a plan in place can help reduce sudden, unexpected machine failure—helping avoid major downtime and reducing spending on replacement parts for facility machinery.

There are, however, major limitations to the scheduled maintenance model. Every time a machine is opened for maintenance, technicians may unintentionally expose sensitive electronics and internal components to dust, oil, fluids and other contaminants. Regular checks also won’t catch everything. If an issue arises and causes machine failure between scheduled checks, workers and supervisors will have no advanced notice of that machine’s failure, potentially leading to damage or injury.

New Industry 4.0 tech, however, means you can do even better than scheduled maintenance. Predictive maintenance is a maintenance approach that uses data collected from IIoT devices to improve maintenance checks and provide advanced notice on potential failure.

With this approach, IIoT sensors installed in and around machinery capture real-time data on how individual machines are behaving. If one begins to function unusually—exceeding safe temperature ranges, vibrating excessively or emitting strange sounds—the sensors can capture this behavior and alert a supervisor.

This maintenance method can help any facility cut down on maintenance checks and reduce the risk of sudden downtime due to damaged equipment.

Improve Food Processing Efficiency with These Strategies

Improvements to efficiency can be a major advantage for food processors. These strategies and investments are some of the best ways to improve a plant’s efficiency. Simple adjustments to materials, equipment, and workflows—or more serious investments in technology like predictive maintenance platforms—can make a significant difference in a facility’s productivity and resource usage.

Emily Newton, Revolutionized Magazine
FST Soapbox

How Can Preventive Maintenance Save Food Processors Money?

By Emily Newton
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Emily Newton, Revolutionized Magazine

The right preventive maintenance approach can improve food safety while saving money. With the right plan, food processing professionals can prevent serious machine failure, decrease maintenance costs and get a better sense of which machines may be more trouble than they’re worth.

However, not every preventive maintenance plan is guaranteed to help processors cut costs. Investing in the right strategy and tools will be necessary for a business that wants to save money with effective maintenance.

How an Effective Preventive Maintenance Approach Can Save Money

To start, the food safety benefits of a preventive maintenance program can help food processors avoid significant troubles down the line. Contamination and recalls will cost time and money.

They can also damage the professional relationships that businesses have with buyers. Recalls are extraordinarily expensive for food and beverage companies, costing an average of $10 million per recall, according to one joint study from the Food Marketing Institute and the Consumer Brands Association (formerly the Grocery Manufacturers Association).

Preventive maintenance can also extend machines’ life spans, giving a company more time before they’ll need to completely replace or rebuild a piece of equipment. Over time, this will help a business prevent machine failure or injuries resulting from improper machine behavior or function. In some cases, it can also mean cheaper repairs and less downtime.

Improving Records With the Right Plan

An effective preventive maintenance plan also generates a significant and detailed archive of maintenance records.

If a plan is implemented correctly, technicians will create a record every time they inspect, repair or otherwise maintain a particular machine. These records will be an invaluable asset in the event of an in-house or third-party audit, as they can help prove that machines have been properly lubricated, calibrated and otherwise maintained.

If a food processing business needs to resell a particular piece of equipment, they’ll also have a full service record that can help them establish the machine’s value.

Over time, the records will also give a highly accurate sense of how expensive the machines really are across an entire business. If the staff records repairs performed, tools used and resources and time spent, professionals can quickly tabulate each machine’s cost concerning man-hours or resources needed. These logs can help single out machinery that may be more trouble than it’s worth and plan future buying decisions.

With a digital system, like a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS), managers can automate most of the administrative work that goes into a preventive maintenance plan.

Modern CMMS tech also provides a few additional benefits beyond streamlining recordkeeping. For example, if a business is up against a major maintenance backlog or trying to balance limited resources against necessary repairs and checkups, a CMMS can help optimize their use of resources. As a result, they can make the most of the time, money and tools they have.

Common Preventive Maintenance Pitfalls

Typically, an effective preventive maintenance plan starts with a catalog of facility equipment. This catalog includes basic information on every piece of equipment in the facility — such as location, name, serial number and vendor, as well as information on how frequently the machine should be inspected or maintained.

Keeping spotty or incomplete records can make a preventative maintenance plan both less effective and more expensive. For example, a partial service record may give an improper idea of how well-maintained certain equipment is. Missing machine information may also confuse service technicians, making it harder for them to properly inspect or maintain a machine.

Too-frequent maintenance checks can also become a problem over time. Every time a maintenance technician opens up a machine, they can potentially expose sensitive electronics to dust, humidity or facility contaminants, or risk damage to machine components.

A maintenance check also means some downtime, as it’s usually not safe or practical to inspect a running machine.

Using the wrong maintenance methods can also sometimes decrease a machine’s life span. For example, certain cleaning agents can damage door gaskets over time. This can eventually cause equipment like a freeze dryer to be unable to create a proper seal.

The equipment manufacturer and technicians can usually help a company know what kind of maintenance will work best and how often they should inspect or tune up a machine.

Going Beyond Preventive Maintenance

Preventive maintenance is the standard approach in most industries, but it’s no longer the cutting-edge of maintenance practices. New developments in the tech world, like new Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) sensors and real-time artificial intelligence (AI) analysis, have enabled a new form of maintenance called predictive maintenance.

With predictive maintenance, a food processing plant can outfit their machines with an array of special sensors. These sensors track information like vibration, lubrication levels, temperature and even noise. A digital maintenance system will record that information, establishing baselines and data about normal operating levels.

Once the baseline is established, the predictive technology can use fluctuations or extreme variables to predict improper operation or machine failure. If some machine variable exceeds safe operating thresholds, the predictive maintenance system can alert facility supervisors — or, depending on what kind of control the system has, shut down a machine altogether.

The predictive approach can catch issues that may arise in-between checks in a preventive schedule. This can help reduce the frequency of maintenance checks — possibly preventing further machine damage and saving the business money on technician labor.

The data a predictive maintenance system collects can also help optimize equipment for maximum efficiency.

Implementing a predictive maintenance plan will require a bit of a tech investment, however.

Food Processors Can Save Money With the Right Maintenance Approach

Preventive maintenance isn’t just essential for food safety — done well, it can also be a major cost-saving measure for food processors.

Good recordkeeping, a regular maintenance schedule and new technology can all help a business decrease maintenance and equipment costs. For processors that want to invest more in their maintenance plans, a predictive approach can provide even better results.

Megan Nichols
FST Soapbox

Four Ways To Improve Your Food Safety Management System

By Megan Ray Nichols
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Megan Nichols

Foodborne illnesses cost billions of dollars each year in the United States. A lack of standards can lead to severe consequences, including loss of customers, negative impact on brand reputation and employees missing work due to illness. As a result, safety is vital for any brand that is committed to high-quality food and maintaining a positive brand image.

Food safety management systems—the processes and procedures that companies set up to prevent contamination—are essential in reducing the risk of foodborne illness and ensuring the safest products possible.

By FDA regulation, most food processors must have HACCP as well as corrective actions/preventive action (CAPAs) plans in place. Even with the right safety guidelines, however, contamination or exposure to food hazards can still occur. The following are four ways to improve the quality of your food safety management system.

1. Conduct Regular Audits

Even if your business’s HACCP is highly effective in theory, it won’t prevent contamination unless actual practice lines up with documentation. Regular audits can ensure employee practice complies.

HACCPs are structured around identifying both potential food hazards and critical control points (CCPs) where your system has the opportunity to prevent, mitigate or eliminate a potential issue. Usually, this means storing food items or performing some biological, physical or chemical action to a target limit— like a specific temperature—to prevent or mitigate contamination.

For example, in the manufacturing of chicken products, cooking and hot-holding are critical control points at which the product needs to be heated to a certain temperature to eliminate or prevent potential hazards. Here, an audit would be a chance to ensure employees cooked and hot-held foods at the proper temperatures. If they aren’t, the food safety management team can make policy changes that ensure practice lines up with planning.

The audit process should be consistent and occur regularly. It should also cover every aspect of your HACCP strategy and place a particular focus on potential hazards and CCPs. These audits can be a way to uncover the strengths and weaknesses of your current HACCP strategy. Companies can use this information to build upon existing practices or demonstrate how procedures could be more effective.

Stainless steel
Stainless steel is popular in food handling due to impermeable surface and resistance to corrosion, two characteristics that help reduce the risk of food contamination. (free image from Splash)

2. Consider a CCP Monitoring System

You can use automated or digital systems to ensure that CCPs aren’t deviating from control limits. With the right sensors, it’s possible to ensure that food remains between target limits at each CCP. For example, automated sensors can quickly alert plant staff if the temperature of food in cold storage rises above a certain threshold, or if there is a deviation from a given CCP.

These alerts can help staff quickly respond to deviations, ensuring compliance, and reducing the risk of contamination by food hazards.

3. Review and Maintain Equipment

An thorough equipment program can be highly effective in reducing the risk of food contamination. To minimize risk, your plan should look at the equipment needed in your plant, as well as how it’s constructed and maintained. For example, choosing industry-standard or food-safe materials can help prevent contamination. Investing in the right kind of stainless steel can both improve operating costs and help reduce the risk of food exposed to hazards.

Preventive maintenance plans for food safety equipment can also reduce the risk of contamination by ensuring the proper functioning of site equipment.

4. Provide Employee Support and Encourage Buy-In

Training programs are an essential component of any HACCP. If your employees don’t know how to handle food properly or aren’t aware of HACCP documentation or the CCPs in the food processing pipeline, they won’t be able to execute the plan and prevent contamination.

While training programs are crucial, they don’t necessarily guarantee compliance. Common pitfalls exist that can discourage employees from following the plan. To encourage employee buy-in, training should begin by discussing the importance of food safety and the potential risks of contamination.

The training should also be robust enough that employees feel confident when executing the HACCP. Training staff should be sure to provide visual demonstrations and opportunities for employees to practice before they become responsible for food safety. Tests or evaluations both during and after training can be useful tools in determining how well your employees understand your business’s HACCP strategy. Regular follow-ups on training can also ensure compliance and reduce the risk of contamination.

Improving Food Safety Management Systems

For any business that works with food, safety programs are essential in ensuring the safest and highest quality product possible. Existing food safety management systems can often improve with the right methods. For example, automated monitoring systems can reduce the risk of deviating from CCP limits. Employee training and regular audits can also ensure that a plant’s food safety practices line up with the documented plan.