In the highly dynamic food industry in which customer demands and tastes change quickly, manufacturers strive to produce high-quality products at the lowest cost in order to remain competitive. They turn to computerized maintenance management systems or other asset care and management solutions for at least two reasons. First, they do this in an effort to squeeze cost and efficiency out of their operations. Second, they do this to comply with rules and regulations promulgated by government agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration.

Food manufacturing challenges
Return on assets continues to be the key concern for small and large, local and multinational manufacturers in a broad range of market segments such as snack foods, corn milling, poultry, beef, vegetable and fruit juices, and other products.

In an industry characterized by increasing overseas competition, seasonality, closures of underperforming divisions, fixed commodity pricing, and tight margins, the objective is to maximize quality and production output by focusing on plant or facility improvements.

Because of concerns for public health and safety, food companies must also comply with FDA rules and regulations. Collecting data or responding to requests can be difficult and time consuming. It can further drive up the cost of doing business. For these reasons, more and more companies are turning to maintenance or asset management strategies to support their business objectives and meet their quality, production and regulatory compliance goals. By integrating CMMS solutions to current production systems, food manufacturers gain productivity improvements and competitive advantage in many areas.

Work planning and scheduling
With increased mergers of underperforming divisions and seasonal factors in the growing, harvesting, and processing of raw materials, many facilities are under pressure to achieve maximum productivity and output within a short period of time. This is further complicated by quick equipment changeovers that are often needed to process different batches of materials or incorporate thousands of unique ingredients. Reactive food manufacturing environments are therefore no longer acceptable.

A computerized maintenance management system that is integrated to production and work flows is the key to a proactive environment. The CMMS enables work requests and tasks to be created and approved online quickly and easily to minimize equipment downtime. It lets production and maintenance managers quickly determine the availability of equipment, manpower, and labor resources. The end result is increased production uptime that helps to generate the best return on food manufacturing assets and a significant increase to the company's bottom line.

Preventive and predictive maintenance
The objective of preventive and predictive maintenance is to reduce the probability of equipment failure during its operation by planning and completing maintenance work in conjunction with production requirements. Regular inspection and maintenance of equipment help to reduce the frequency, expense, and possible dangers associated with unexpected breakdowns.

As food manufacturers are often faced with short timeframes to build their stocks for the year, preventive and predictive maintenance strategies are critical to support their production and cost control objectives. The CMMS helps establish and define preventive and predictive maintenance routines and automatically triggers jobs based on user-defined operating statistics.

Reactive food manufacturing environments are therefore no longer acceptable.

Materials management
In the food industry, equipment is generally custom designed and built to specific processing and work flow requirements. When equipment breaks down, it may be the result of parts failure that requires immediate ordering and expediting of maintenance, repair, and overhaul inventory.

The CMMS supports production by ensuring there is a reliable supply of parts available to carry out work. The CMMS accommodates many thousands of unique parts and enables production or maintenance managers to manage multiple warehouses, identify obsolete items, and automate the item reorder process. The result is a more efficient procurement process that empowers employees to make immediate purchasing decisions. By automating the materials management and procurement process, food manufacturers dramatically reduce overall cost by minimizing the labor component.

Using a CMMS also helps eliminate paperwork. That means the purchasing department can focus its time on broader business issues such as improving supplier relations and negotiating strategic contacts that maximize productivity and help to increase the bottom line.

By automating the materials management and procurement process, food manufacturers dramatically reduce overall cost by minimizing the labor component.

Data collection and analysis
Normal maintenance activities generate a vast amount of data. A CMMS plays an integral part in transforming this data into meaningful information for effectively managing maintenance. Equipment repair history, spare parts usage, and preventive maintenance history are some of the key pieces of information that help food companies ensure that their products are manufactured consistently and are of high quality.

With the advent of client/server technologies, manufacturers can use CMMS and other sophisticated asset management tools that easily transform data from diverse databases. These On-line Analytical Processing (OLAP) tools are designed for end-users and allow them to build reports and graphical views of information that is critical to their operation.

Perpetually, the food manufacturers must keep on top of changes to avoid penalties and fines for non-compliance.

Another area in which data collection and analysis is important is in regulatory compliance, particularly with government agencies like the FDA. Concerns for public health and safety has resulted in new regulations, revisions, and amendments. Perpetually, the food manufacturers must keep on top of changes to avoid penalties and fines for non-compliance. An integrated CMMS helps streamline the data collection process and results in better management of regulatory or compliance information.

Conclusions
Food manufacturers can adapt maintenance and asset management strategies to support their business objectives and meet quality, production, and regulatory compliance goals. By integrating CMMS to production processes, manufacturers achieve increased production uptime; more efficient work planning and scheduling; engineered solutions for repetitive problems; increased commitment to preventive and predictive maintenance; improved maintenance, repair and overhaul materials management resources; and more streamlined data collection for analysis and regulatory compliance.