Key points
Now – more than ever before – Maintenance Management excellence is critical to the successful operations and profitability of asset-intensive food & beverage manufacturers.
Absolutely critical.
Those food & beverage manufacturers, who are soaring and towering above all others, have realised that to keep ahead demands asset management strategic thinking and managing their maintenance with modern and pragmatic best practices.
They are closing all the gaps in their maintenance processes, optimising their workflows. They realise the need for continuous improvement, and continuous evolution underpinned with mobile technology, solutions and strategies.
Food & beverage manufacturing can be a harsh and challenging environment where high asset reliability and availability can be a distinct competitive advantage.
So, what really matters to maintenance organisations in the food & beverage industry?
Maintenance Management Matters in Food & Beverage
When it comes to Food & Beverage manufacturing, the assets and processes can be surprisingly complex. Whether it’s high-speed conveyors, bottling machines or end-of-line packers, the equipment and sub-assemblies can present a myriad of different failure modes and risks to the business.
So, to ensure full operational performance, lifecycle value delivery, and manufacturing efficiency, maintenance management must be front and centre in the business’s strategies and plans. Those plans need a laser-like focus on key factors such as:
- Monitoring regulatory compliance
- Compliance with food quality and safety standards
- Asset and manufacturing hygiene
- Effective and efficient maintenance practices
- Trained and competent employees
- Optimised spare part inventory
- Inspecting equipment and food zones Defect elimination
- Employee and customer safety
In this ever-demanding world, it is vital that food & beverage manufacturers continuously evolve and modernise their maintenance management approach if they want to stay in business.
For food & beverage manufacturers lagging behind those in the vanguard, there are a few simple but compelling reasons for a change of approach.
The 6 Critical Reasons for Maintenance Management Excellence
1. Adherence to Food Safety Standards:
This towers above all else in the food & beverage industry. Whether it’s the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) in the USA, the Food Standards Authority (FSA) in the UK, or the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) in Europe, adherence and compliance is not optional.
Those who fail to control hygiene, cleanliness, pests, waste products, compliance records, safety data sheets and much more will fall foul of the regulations. If you don’t manage your maintenance, then product recalls, customer complaints and a bad press can and will destroy your business.
Stay on top of maintenance management and food safety if you want to stay alive in business.
2. Maintenance Strategy Sets You Apart from The Rest
Professional football teams wouldn’t put 11 players on the field and tell them to do whatever they want for 90 minutes, would they? And so, food & beverage manufacturers need to have a game plan and maintenance strategy if they want to win and optimise those key life cycle costs associated with maintenance and operations.
By having senior management agree on maintenance objectives, the maintenance management function can develop asset life plans, create tasks in the CMMS or EAM, and deploy the resources on the shop floor to achieve those objectives.
3. Asset Health Monitoring Drives Asset Availability
A modern, pragmatic maintenance strategy will inevitably include asset health monitoring and predictive maintenance.Yes, this is not only the preserve of high margin manufacturers.
Food & Beverage manufacturers also need to have condition monitoring strategies in place. Reducing reactive maintenance and unplanned downtime improves asset availability.
Who wouldn’t want higher Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE)?
By deploying techniques such as vibration analysis, oil sampling, infrared thermography, ultrasound and visual inspections the maintenance team – with modern technology at their fingertips – can avert the pain and costs of failed gearboxes, drives and conveyors.
4. Excel at Work Execution Management and Reap the Productivity Rewards
Planning and scheduling work requests and work orders can provide significant leverage on productivity gains and operational performance. By prioritising and performing effectively and efficiently, you will see positive change in KPIs such as availability and wrench time.
If the technicians know their tasks, have procedures and checklists, have the right skills, the right tools, and the right spares then you will be driving waste out of the maintenance process.
You will see a rapid return on investment. Downtime will be reduced. Maintenance will be performed quicker. It can be like doubling your maintenance team.
5. Preventive Maintenance Procedures Ensure Repeatability
Imagine this for a second. Your technician has been asked to replace a coupling, but you’ve given them no procedure. The coupling seizes and fails a few days after start up. A different technician then repairs it – he or she has the right procedure in their head.
The coupling performs well for several months until another technician comes along and aligns it incorrectly. Failure follows quickly again. This cycle of unrepeatability and business risk will continue forever if you don’t have detailed procedures and precision instructions as part of your CMMS or EAM. It is a best practice and a form of quality assurance.
Why wouldn’t you reduce the business risk?
6. High Availability = Competitive Advantage
Maintenance management excellence can play a key role in high asset availability and the competitive advantage it delivers. In the food & beverage industry where low margins and high volume are the norm, high asset availability is a key enabler of profitability, asset life cycle value delivery, and stakeholder satisfaction.
High asset availability and utilisation often go hand in hand with high reliability and it’s often said that a reliable plant is a safe plant. Your CMMS and asset health monitoring program can be and should be the drivers of high availability.
So, when the senior stakeholders in your food & beverage business have understood those 6 critical reasons for maintenance management, how will they recognise what the higher-level success factors are from a financial point of view?
Food & Beverage Business Success Factors
In any successful company, there has to be a great fit and a smooth interface between the people, the processes, and the systems. The people must be skilled and competent at what they do, and they must use that knowledge to leverage the capability of their systems. The processes must be effective and efficient, and the systems in place have got to work with the people – not against them.
Bringing this all together, business leaders and financial officers need to be conscious of 5 critical success factors:
1: Business Profitability
2: Performance and Efficiency
3: Visibility and Control
4: Regulatory Compliance and Reporting
5: Maximising Contributions from IT Investments
Professional and modern maintenance management will be a key player in these 5 success factors. Senior stakeholders must buy in to and engage positively with maintenance management. Get these success factors right as a food & beverage manufacturer, and you will get way ahead of the game.
Contact www.dynaway.com for further information
