Meat + Poultry - July 2010 - 48

AS ONE PLANT EXPANDS, SO DOES YIELD,
EFFICIENCY AND SAVINGS
As Odom's Tennessee Pride tripled the square footage and product
capacity of its Dickson, Tennessee plant, it also multiplied the yield,
efficiency and savings of its forming operations by adding a Formax®
Maxum700® Forming System.
In only a few months' time since its installation, the Maxum700®
has remarkably changed the production equation at the plant - and
earned stellar marks. "Our yield is unbelievable - by installing the
Maxum700®, we picked up at least six percent," reports plant manager
Mike Cotriss, adding that greater efficiency has followed. "We are
running at 99.5 percent efficiency with this machine - near perfection."

Once they made the decision to install a Formax® Maxum700®, the
pace picked up dramatically, according to Cotriss. "An exceptional
day with the previous machine would be 35,000 or maybe 40,000
pounds. With the Maxum700®, we have seen an output of 64,000
pounds," Cotriss reports.
In addition, the flexibility of the machine's design, thanks to features
like the servo mold plate drive and knock out assembly for complete
process control, allows for production of a wide range of products.
"We can quickly accommodate our line to make quarter-pound patties
or very small snack size sandwiches. For both, and for all other products,
the tonnage has improved across the line," Cotriss says.

"By installing the Maxum700®, we picked up at least
6 percent in our yield and we are running at 99.5 percent
efficiency - near perfection."
- Mike Cotriss, Plant Manager, Odom's Tennessee Pride

For its best-in-class performance, the Maxum700® is designed as
much for ease of use as it is for its high-tech capability, says Cotriss,
who got his first look at the state-of-the-art machine at an industry
trade show. "The thinking and the engineering that went into it is
absolutely brilliant, and it's so easy to operate," he says, adding that
it takes true forward-thinking vision to come up with such technically
sound yet user-friendly solutions. "It's like they had gone way beyond
to the next step."
Keeping ahead of production demands
A few years ago, Odom's Tennessee Pride was taking the next steps
to update the Dickson facility, which had been built in 1989 as a
dedicated sandwich plant, to accommodate the company's growing
volume demands and its expansion into more cooked sausage products.
With ample new floor space, eight production lines, new systems for
cooking formed patties and for the production of sausage balls and
gravy, Cotriss and other plant leaders started looking for a new forming
machine when the system in place wasn't up to the challenge.

In fact, the volume numbers at the Dickson plant continue to climb
- and impress the plant management and company leaders. "It has
been setting records continuously," he says, citing new benchmarks
every month.
Efficiency to the max
While the Maxum700® sets records for tonnage, it also has proven to
be a robust and nearly constantly-running addition to the floor at this
Odom's Tennessee Pride facility, maximizing efficiency to previously
unheard-of levels.
"The absolute difference in our forming operation before and after
the Maxum700® is that the old system was working overtime to get
us what we needed and the Formax® machine has exceeded our
needs and made it look easy along the way," he observes.
Cotriss cites machine features like a servo mold plate drive and a
servo knock out drive for the A+ efficiency rating. The servo drive
system, for example, provides a smooth mold plate operation at
speeds up to 120 strokes a minute, he points out.
Meat + Poultry - July 2010

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