Food manufacturing facilities are extensive, with complex operations using sophisticated machinery and technology that can cost millions. The slightest interruption in one of these processes or an issue with one of the machines can cause production to cease, resulting in a lack of products to sell and a severe disruption in the supply chain. Effective management of the entire facility and all its components is essential for protecting profit margins and maintaining superior customer service.
There is more to plant maintenance than the production lines, especially in a food manufacturing facility. Diseases causing contaminants can accumulate on anything and anyone, which can jeopardize the integrity of the food. Food processing facilities and their employees must follow strict guidelines to prevent compromising the integrity of ingredients, packaging materials, work-in-process, and finished goods; This means in addition to regular machine maintenance, maintaining clean facilities, and having working equipment such as fire extinguishers and other preventative supplies. One major source of bacteria is the actual plant and warehouse flooring. The slightest chip, scratch, or crack can be a breeding ground for many organisms that can contaminate food products.
The Food and Beverage industry has unique maintenance needs related to food quality standards, production-critical assets, and complex work crews. These needs pose an exciting challenge for maintenance teams striving for more optimized practices.
Identification of Changes in Asset Health: Identifying changes to asset health, or an impending failure, is critical for profit margins in the food and beverage industry. To better control their maintenance costs, maintenance teams need the ability to access better and monitor machine data. When maintenance teams can easily identify an asset issue, they can immediately and swiftly resolve the problem, preventing unexpected and costly breakdowns.
Strict Requirements on Equipment Performance and Food Quality Standards: The food and beverage industry faces multiple industry regulations and food quality standards. The impact of a failure on company revenue can be extreme. Reducing risks and maintaining regulatory standards must be central to all maintenance-related projects. Asset condition monitoring and effective production control, and predictive shutdown systems are fundamental to safe and secure operations.
Complex Asset Connections: Assets in the food and beverage industry are connected by a system of conveyors, belts, and fasteners. This adds complexity to maintenance that other industries don't experience. Maintaining this equipment to keep pace with the rest of the cogs in the food-processing production line requires constant attention and specific technician skills.
Identify and Manage Production-Critical Work Orders Easily: When a critical production asset requires maintenance, the maintenance must be completed as quickly as possible. Additionally, this work cannot occur during essential production periods unless necessary. Maintenance teams need the ability to efficiently plan, schedule, assign, execute, and complete work orders.
Maximize Uptime of Production Equipment: A food and beverage organization's production capabilities are highly dependent on the state of its capital assets. Leveraging the availability of key production assets is critical for organizations to meet their quotas. Maintenance teams must work within these demands to ensure assets are available during critical production periods.
Continuous Improvement with Effective Reporting: As the saying goes, knowledge is power. When maintenance teams can analyze their maintenance practices, they can improve their planning, scheduling, and execution and optimize their processes. Food and Beverage maintenance teams need access to accurate data to ensure correct analysis.
Complex Maintenance Shifts and Work Crews: Food and Beverage maintenance planners and schedulers need the ability to handle various groupings of resources for their specific work units. Flexibility to manage crews by craft, team, or combination is critical for successfully planning and scheduling maintenance tasks.
How can a food and beverage manufacturer ensure that every aspect of their facilities is properly maintained to ensure food safety, efficient production, a smooth flow of the supply chain elements, and ultimately deliver excellent customer service?
The entire facility – the operation's mechanical, physical, and human components – needs to be synchronized, monitored, and managed. An effective CMMS Maintenance Software can help manufacturers effectively manage physical assets. An asset management process and system that includes design, construction, commissioning, operation, maintenance, and replacement of plant, equipment, and facilities can assist in optimizing assets and minimizing repair costs.
A CMMS system allows management to access asset-related costs and projects with a complete analysis of labor, material, and contractor expenses. Inventory management achieves the ideal balance between having the correct spare and minimizing inventory investment. All facility management and maintenance aspects, from the physical buildings to the machinery inside, are synchronized to ensure a smooth operation.
Profits are critical to food manufacturers, and reducing costs increases profits. The value that food manufacturers can receive from an effective Asset Management system is staggering:
Each of these values represents areas that directly impact profit margins. An effective Enterprise Asset Management Solution ensures that a plant can consistently meet production requirements at the lowest cost possible while maintaining high standards of quality, safety, and the ability to become an agile, effective enterprise.