Baking & Snack - March 2006 - 44

ᮡ QA technican Kathy Yeninas tests a sample of flour tortillas for
moisture content.
"We did the same thing when we opened the Fife plant by
using staff and facilities at the McMinnville, OR, plant," Mr.
Solano said. "We discovered from that experience that startup teams were an excellent idea. Learning on a line that's
been running for years is different from simultaneously
starting up and learning on a line that's never been run."
Ramp-up proceeded on an aggressive schedule. The
first press line started testing products on June 6 and
produced salable products by June 20. Products from the
second line were on the market in mid-July. As each line
came up, shifts were added one week at a time.
The tortilla plant currently has 160 employees with 85
of those in production roles. The company estimated that
total employment could exceed 230 in three years. "There's
a good labor pool in the area," Mr. Solano observed. "This is
a community that has seen more than its share of job losses
and manufacturing shut downs." He expressed pride in being able to tell people hired for the Mountain Top facility
about Mission Foods' record of growth and its pattern of
adding jobs and plant locations, rather than closing them.
SEPARATE ZONES. When laying out the plant, engineers
followed the pattern of the Fife site establishing a long
corridor between the 2-story office area and the food pro-

46 / BAKING & SNACK / March 2006

duction and storage zones. The first floor houses offices for
local managers, human resources and production managers.
Employee facilities include a break room and locker rooms
complete with shower facilities. The second floor is set up
for visitor offices and conference and training rooms.
"There's even an executive-style office here used by
our owner when he visits," Mr. Solano said. "At other
plants, we found that having a designated training room
was very valuable. It also serves as a meeting room for the
production teams to use."
As a security measure, the company put in a cardswipe system for entry to the building. The HR department was located next to the employee entrance deliberately, so staff could have convenient access to its services.
"Benefits here are good," Mr. Solano observed, noting
that staff members wait only 90 days after being hired to
enter the 401(k) program.
The quality assurance laboratory is also located along
the corridor. The good-sized lab contains both refrigerated and ambient product retention rooms for measuring shelf life, and it is staffed on a 24-hour basis.
"Technology is changing the approach in the QA area,
too," Mr. Solano observed. For example, the Mountain
Top staff works with handheld moisture monitors to
measure results on-line.
This plant, like all Mission Foods facilities, has a
HACCP program in place. The company's efforts are
managed by Lucy Gonzalez, vice-president of food safety,
who reports directly to Guillermo Gonzalez, senior vicepresident of manufacturing.
"From a food safety and sanitation standpoint, we work
hard to make sure our plants score above 900 on the AIB
inspections, which are unannounced," Mr. Solano said. "We
didn't have to make this plant as good as it is, but we did!"
Like all new plants, Mountain Top is concentrating on
cutting its rejection rate. To encourage improvement in this
important product quality variable, managers are running a
"race to quality" program. One long wall in the corridor displays a multilane racetrack with moveable cars representing
the teams responsible for each line and each shift. The cars
are placed to indicate product placed on hold.
"It's a race, but the focus is on product quality," Mr.
Solano explained.
Throughout the plant itself, "job aides" providing a visual product quality guide are posted on walls and work
stations. These show the tortilla's "body" and "face" and
make note of the varying numbers of toast points and
other qualities preferred by different customers.
IN AND OUT. Plant layout separates flour and corn tortilla production into two enclosed "shops" with cooling
and packaging areas set up in tandem right behind them.
Both shops were designed for expansion, with drains and
utility drops already in place for more lines in each area.

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