Specialized skills are needed to keep machines running, processing areas clean and foreign invaders at bay, but food companies differ on whether these specialists are staff members or vendors’ employees.
Where are core competencies and core responsibilities in operating a food or beverage manufacturing facility, and the distinction between them helps explain why some support services are outsourced and others remain firmly in-house operations.
Maintenance and sanitation routines illustrate the difference. While both are essential and the focus of continuous improvement efforts, plant managers are demonstrating a growing appetite for outside assistance in keeping production machinery humming. While still a niche service, the difficulties in developing and retaining a skilled in-house maintenance team are expanding the scope of outsourcing.
Sanitation, on the other hand, is at the foundation of an effective food-safety program. Although outsourcing began in the 1960s in the meat segment and is found in many other categories today, the industry focus on food safety has caused many companies to regard sanitation as a core responsibility. “If anything, the trend is to bring sanitation back in house,” believes Dale Ducommun, manager of the Malt-O-Meal plant in Asheboro, NC.
Pest control, sanitation and maintenance are prerequisite programs in any facility’s HACCP plan, and deficiencies in program documentation and corrective actions taken can spell trouble when third-party audits are conducted, particularly with the more stringent requirements of audit standards under the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI).
Operators are shouldering more equipment maintenance tasks, such as intermediate cleaning, lubrication, machine inspection and preliminary troubleshooting. Their expanded duties reflect both cost-cutting needs and labor shortages. “With the economic conditions and the downsizing of workforces, a lot of the personnel with the advanced skills needed in maintenance are no longer there,” points out Terry Fisher, key account manager in the services division of SKF Inc., Canandaigua, NY. Given the shortage of skilled maintenance technicians, many food and beverage companies view outsourcing “as a more reliable way” to keep equipment in good working order, he says.
The diversity of operating platforms and processing technologies in food and beverage require maintenance personnel who are jacks of all trades. As the complexity of the equipment increases, suppliers who provided consultative services are becoming more involved in diagnostic work, though not necessarily in the execution. “Other companies are better at being the local wrench-turning organization,” says Fisher. “We’re focusing on being the knowledge-outsource organization.”
Retirement is removing graybeards from facilities’ maintenance staffs. Training the next generation is a pressing need in many organizations. To help meet it, SKF is expanding the scope of its training services, from on-line courses on basic skills to in-plant training for more skilled technicians. In the case of condition monitoring, maintenance personnel are trained to use the diagnostic tools, with data transmitted over a secure line to SKF’s service center for analysis and a recommended action plan.
A broader scope of maintenance support has evolved at Rockwell Automation, which is embedding more technicians in response to manufacturer requests. “About 20 percent of my workforce shows up at their sites each day,” according to Blake Moret, vice president and general manager of the Milwaukee automation firm’s customer maintenance support unit. What began as issue-specific consultation has gradually expanded into MRO asset management and remote monitoring of all automation systems, including non-Rockwell controls and field devices. It goes considerably beyond the on-site parts management work performed for Pepsi Bottling Group and other manufacturers seven years ago (see “The business case for better maintenance,” Food Engineering, March 2008).
The most ambitious program is InSite Managed Services, a broad range of both maintenance and operations support delivered via a virtual private network connecting the plant with a service center staffed 24/7 with technical experts who monitor servers, databases and automation devices. A Rockwell Automation Insite pilot program is underway with Allpax Products, a Covington, LA retort manufacturer that standardizes on Allen-Bradley controls. Allpax provides remote diagnostics of its own equipment, but the service is limited to its own components. With the addition of more sensors to track the production characteristics of each batch, the potential points of failure have increased dramatically, explains Jonny Watkins, Allpax’s director of software engineering. Monitoring those devices and overseeing knowledge management require a large staff and extensive expertise. More than 200 Rockwell technicians support InSite, notes Moret.