The need for turn-on-a-dime production keeps increasing, yet the migration from manual processes to machines that deliver high-volume at low cost work against that need. Reconciling the goals of line flexibility and machine reliability is the kind of challenge that keeps engineers and operations managers up at night.
NASCAR pit crews often are held up as the gold standard in rapid changeover, but speed is only half the challenge. Precision also is critical. Returning a line to a steady state can be the most costly aspect of changeover, with lost production time compounded by the financial cost of out-of-spec product.
Dedicated lines solve the problem, but dedicated lines are inflexible. When designing production flow and specifying equipment needs for its Camp Hill, Pa., case-ready meat plant, Vantage Foods managers wanted to move toward just-in-time production.
“We get an order in the morning, and we ship it that night,” says Scott Hardiman, vice president and general manager of the facility. Seasonal variability meant some lines had to be able to produce multiple products. That need was addressed in the line design.
The 162,000-sq.-ft. Camp Hill facility is owned by Ahold USA, a Dutch grocer that counts Giant Food and Stop & Shop stores among its North American holdings. Ahold funded the $63 million project but contracted with Calgary, Alberta-based Vantage to operate the plant. Fresher perishables are being emphasized by Ahold, and the Camp Hill facility helps close the loop between the cash register and the daily production schedule.
Vantage Foods standardized on Vemag HP-E series stuffers from Canton, Mass.-based Reiser & Co. for Camp Hill’s four lines. Three lines are dedicated to production of ground beef loafs, chubs and patties, but the fourth will alternate between sausages, meatballs and, if necessary, the other products. “The stores’ needs change by the season, and we’ll be able to meet those needs with minimal changeover,” says Hardiman. The biggest design challenge was engineering machine infeed and outfeed systems to handle multiple products; swapping out components on the stuffer itself is fairly straightforward.
Another Camp Hill distinction is its primary grind capability. Case-ready operations typically receive beef trim from grinder operations and convert it to loaves, explains Hardiman, who has managed three case-ready plant start-ups. By performing the grind on site, he estimates the operation cuts 8-10 days out of the cycle, from slaughter to shelf. “The ground beef is much fresher in this format.”
Although it has 850 workers and is producing 2 million lbs. of finished goods a week, Camp Hill still is in start-up mode, with the longest tenured workers only seven months on the job. Once steady state is achieved, an ambitious scope of lean manufacturing and employee engagement programs will begin. “Employee involvement in finding solutions leads to improved quality, reduced turnover and greater operational efficiency and flexibility,” Hardiman believes.
Best of both worlds
Flexibility and throughput are often viewed as either-or options: an effort to boost one requires a decrease in the other. That may not be the case, however: Campbell Soup Co.’s Napoleon, Ohio, plant has diversified production substantially in recent years as it assumes responsibility for products previously manufactured at now-shuttered facilities. Despite more complex scheduling and frequent changeovers, Napoleon produced record volume last year, suggesting that, in terms of flexibility and throughput, food companies can have their cake and eat it, too.
