Baking&Snack - April 2013 - 40

LANTMÄNNEN UNIBAKE USA

LEAD and lean

At Lantmännen Unibake USA, LEAD
stands for Learn, Engage, Analyze and
Do, and it’s the backbone for continuous
improvement at the bakery. Developed
by a Swedish consulting firm three years
ago for the bakery’s parent company in
Denmark, the LEAD program is similar to
Six Sigma, lean manufacturing and other
best practices that provide tools and strategies for improving process development
to enhance quality and lower cost per unit.
“It helps not only the managers but also
the employees to focus on continuous improvement, said Carlos Hernandez, direc”
tor of operations at the St. Petersburg, FL,
bakery. “It relies on continuous training
of employees and supervisors to look at
areas to improve on production, the flow
of products and even logistics to help find
ways to reduce costs.
”
Lantmännen also relies on value stream
mapping for improving efficiencies and
reducing waste from incoming ingredients
to streamlining inventory and shipping.
“An example might be how to reduce inventory or the time that a specific product
stays in our freezer before it’s shipped,
”
Mr. Hernandez said. “Another may be how
do you reduce the lead time from ordering the ingredient to shipping the product
without affecting production.
”
The two-year-old program, he added, is
just beginning to show significant contributions to the bottom line.

/ Baking & Snack / April 2013

Mr. Hernandez said. “That’s a very inconvenient way to run your operation.
You always want to plan maintenance.
That’s why our unexpected downtime
for the year is less than 1%.”
To accommodate the longer fermentation and proof times, the bakery
tries to leverage its 2,500-pallet freezer
and maximize the amount of product
coming out of the ovens. It approaches
production like a long-distance runner rather than a sprinter.
“We may not be running as fast as
others, but through planning, we are
doing longer runs,” Mr. Kolinski said.
“We don’t have as many changeovers.
Maybe that requires us to carry a little
more inventory than we like, but I
think that’s a good tradeoff.”
During the past three years,
Lantmännen invested about $3 million to upgrade its St. Petersburg
operation by installing new makeup
systems — including Rheon stressfree artisan bread lines as well as
a Koenig roll line that cranks out
15,000 pieces an hour.
“We’ve become more flexible
to the changes in the market,” Mr.
Hernandez said. “We want to build
lines that are flexible to accommodate the emerging trends.”
Additionally, the bakery installed
new packaging equipment, specifically pillow pack machines, auto-

Dozens of cheese rolls tumble down to a form/
fill/seal bagger, where they are bulk packed to be
palletized and stored in the bakery’s 2,500-pallet
storage freezer.
matic counters and vision systems
to expand the number of formats it
can offer foodservice, retail, in-store
bakery, C-store and private label
customers.
To bolster its sales and marketing initiatives, Lantmännen
transformed a nearby 7,500-sq-ft
building it owned across the street
from the bakery into a Customer
Welcome and R&D Center (see
“Collaborating with customers” on
Page 38). After moving its R&D activities and offices to the Welcome
Center, the bakery remodeled and
expanded its employee locker rooms
and break area.
To enhance food safety, the company also used that extra space to
invest in a state-of-the-art hygiene
chamber that all employees must
pass through before entering the
production area. The stage-gate process includes automatic boot/sole
scrubbing, hand-washing, handdrying and hand-sanitizing stations.
If employees don’t follow proper
procedures, turnstiles prevent them
from proceeding into the bakery.
Over the years, Lantmännen’s
parent company’s standards for
food safety typically exceeded industry standards, according to
Mr. Kolinski. In fact, he added,
its worldwide good manufacturing practices helped earn the St.
Petersburg facility the British Retail
Consortium (BRC Certified with
A Grade) certification under the
Global Food Safety Initiative.

Taking time for details
As a part of BRC’s and Lantmännen’s
food safety and traceability programs, all ingredients and other materials are inspected before they’re
allowed into the facility. In the receiving area, the bakery fills out a
trailer inspection form that checks

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Baking&Snack - April 2013

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