Baking & Snack - June 2016 - 101

EQUIPMENT
Processing Flexibility

Efficiency Included
Good facility design and plant
layout can incorporate flexibility,
room for growth and streamlined
production into a new bakery.
by Charlotte Atchley

Bakers strive to make their production lines as efficient
and flexible as possible. Efficient and flexible production lines mean more capacity, a variety of products and
more opportunity for growth. And growth means expansion will eventually be necessary. To accommodate
these needs, bakers need facility design that can cultivate
those goals, all while saving money, of course.
"They're always looking at cost," said Greg Carr,
director of project planning for baking and snack, The
Austin Co. "They're looking at trying to maximize or optimize the production of the facility. They want to look
at the aspects of the design that will help optimize the
throughput while considering the lowest cost."
Incorporating automation often hits all of these
points. "Our consensus is when possible, moving toward
automation to reduce cost and increase efficiencies is the
first step," said Todd Allsup, vice-president, Stellar.
Working with facility design engineers, bakers can
make the most of their automated or semi-automated
lines for streamlined and efficient production, built-in
flexibility, and prepped for future expansions.

As straight as possible
First things first, a project charter provides bakers and
their engineering team with a clear overhead picture of
the facility, its needs and its future.
"You're taking an integrated view of the overall project,"

Mr. Allsup said. "Project charter is the specific objective
the project, and it would be supported by a manufacturing strategy." Without a project charter, bakers can miss
key information such as the downstream and upstream
impacts of particular equipment. "It also opens potential
for misaligned line speeds and throughputs and bottlenecks," he said. These are the enemies of efficient bakeries.
Avoiding bottlenecks is key to improving efficiencies,
and employing facility engineers can help. "When you
get a little bit further, it's important you look at your
mass balance equations for your SKUs, understand the
process diagrams, and understand the flow of people
through a plant," Mr. Allsup said. "If they aren't considered, they can create bottlenecks."
Preventing backups from happening in the first place
would be ideal, and the layout of the building and production floor is a key way to do that. "Straight line flow is
the best way for eliminating bottlenecks," Mr. Carr said.
"When you have flow in existing buildings or non-linear
flow, they end up creating U-shape or L-shape flows, and
bottlenecks happen. The straighter you can keep it, the
fewer bottlenecks you can have."
Linear production lines also have other benefits such
as improved maintenance, flexibility and worker safety.
"Bakers like lines of sight so they can see down the lines
because the newer bakeries are so automated that there
are very few people that need to be there," said Stuart
Jernigan, director of pre-construction, AM King.
Sometimes bottlenecks can't be prevented; however,
once they happen, it's important to identify them and
truly understand the issues before a baker can determine
the best course of action to correct them. "Questions
need to be asked in reference to space for replacing the
piece of equipment or what size footprint you have to
work with," said Mike Salazar, chief engineer, Epstein.
"This is when a good design of your process is important, allowing you enough room for expanding or re-

A new bakery has many things
to consider in the planning:
capacity, flexibility, future
expansions, maintenance and
sanitation, transfer points.
Proper planning can help
ensure a bakery fulfills all
these needs.
Vito Palmisano

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