Baking & Snack - June 2020 - 90

PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE

When bakeries run 24/7
to fill increased demand,
maintenance cannot
be neglected if bakers
want an operating
production line at the
end of the busy season.

Mr. Brixey suggested using the idea of two buckets to guide what gets fixed when downtime is short:
Maintenance needed to keep critical assets running and
those repairs that have made themselves known.

Collect downtime
After a bakery has compiled a list of what needs to happen during downtime, the next challenge is finding the
time. Even a bakery running 24/7 will typically allow
for 8-10 hours of downtime a week to perform routine
maintenance. But sometimes bakeries preparing for a
busy season or trying to keep up with panic-buying demand will run two to three weeks without any extended
time for maintenance. When a bakery is truly operating
around the clock, maintenance teams need to identify
and collect any downtime that can be found.
"There's always changeover and cleaning times because the equipment will require some sanitation,"
Mr. Kline said. "You schedule maintenance when
you know the downtime is coming. You have people
standing by to jump on it when the opportunity becomes available."
Maintenance can easily be shuffled to the side when
demand has production running 24/7, but sanitation for
food safety must always happen. Maintenance teams can
be prepped and ready to take advantage of these stops.
Cleaning following allergens is especially advantageous
for maintenance as these sanitation cycles are often longer than conventional sanitation.
Even a 30-minute production break for lunch provides an opportunity to quickly replace a gear box or
belting, provided the maintenance team is prepared.
"For a lot of people if they don't plan for those intervals, they miss the opportunity to take advantage of it
and then ultimately you might have a break down where
you're forced to fix it or contend with remaking product
that was lost," Mr. Brixey said.
So how does a maintenance team pull off the most efficient repairs? With a lot of planning, Mr. Jarvis said.
Daily walking inspections reveal components that

may be ready to fail. These lists, along with outstanding
work orders and known routine maintenance are under
consideration for criticality ranking. From this, a plan
emerges and is reevaluated and revised.
"I call it a planning cycle because it never stops; it
continues week after week," Mr. Jarvis explained. "We
do the initial plan, we meet and review the plan, there's
feedback, and that's where we create a priority list. What
are the big things that are going to hit us, and what are
the things that we need to work on?"
These strategies are helpful for round-the-clock production during a busy season, but the pandemic has
provided some bakeries an opportunity. For those supplying retail and foodservice, the pandemic has nearly
eliminated the foodservice side of business. In some
cases, production can be shuffled to other lines, creating
new opportunities for downtime. With more than half
its volume in foodservice, Orlando Baking experienced
this dip in business and sees the glass as half full.
"We're trying to focus on taking advantage of the
downtime," Mr. Jarvis said. "I tell my maintenance staff all
the time that this is a gift. Unfortunately, it's not necessarily good for the business right now, but in the short term,
this downtime we take advantage of can really help us."

Running maintenance
Prioritizing what needs to be done during limited downtime maximizes maintenance efficiency, but finding ways
to minimize that to-do list can also help toward that goal.
"There are ways of performing preventive maintenance
on equipment while it's running, either manually or in
an automatic format that minimizes what you have to do
when that equipment is down," Mr. Kline explained.
New equipment is often designed for running preventive
maintenance. These design attributes can include remote
lubrication or even streamlined design that removes maintenance needs altogether.
Remote lubrication often features automatic oilers or
configuring components, so they are safely accessible while
the equipment is running.

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Baking & Snack - June 2020

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