Bakery Plant Maintenance Management System - part 1

Bakery operations need a very  good maintenance management system for efficient running of plant . Maintenance activity  needs  regular monitoring and records to evaluate  problems and their solution . Bakery maintenance has its own features which need attention apart from  regular maintenance practices .Break down s lower production out put and have to be reduced to minimum .To achieve lower  down time  a robust maintenance system with skilled manpower  are  required .

Major equipments in bakery are Mixers , Ovens , Packing machines , Air Compressors , Material Handling equipments ,Fire Hydrant Systems , Bulk Handling systems ,Grinders ,Motors ,Gear Boxes , Fans , Screw Conveyors , Gears and Chain, Burners  and Sprockets .

A good maintenance system would have following  elements of  maintenance system  in place

Manpower

A bakery  plant would have an engineering head / plant manager / maintenance manager  who is responsible  for all activity  related to  plant and machinery . Depending upon  the size and hours of operation, factory needs to have skilled technicians who would perform maintenance jobs . Planning and scheduling is done with machine history  .Idle time available for maintenance and  requirement of machinery in accordance with production planning .

Manpower requirement varies as per size of the plant  . We can have

Three shift coverage  - 8 hr Shift
Two shift coverage  - 12 hr Shift
General shift coverage - 8/12 hrs

Each shift coverage needs to have  Foreman , Fitters/technician( Elect/Mech )   and Helper s . Now days concept of outsourcing  of maintenance part are being implemented  but this concept is yet to take ground as factories still prefer to have their own maintenance personnel.

Tools
Maintenance  work force requires  all  basic to advance tools to perform their job efficiently . I has been  observed few task which could have been done  are  executed by people from outside as the maintenance team lack latest or basic tools to perform . Training for maintenance personnel by the machine manufacturers / tool manufacturer  should be included  in factory hr programs .

Critical Spare Inventory

A small store  to cater all critical and regular spares   with a person responsible for monitoring /inspection/liaising  for stock out material /indent  with purchase  deptt  is  must for any medium to big bakery plants .Concept  of making spare available  at work station or production hall are popular in many factories.


Predictive Maintenance
This methods utilises  prior diagnosis of any aberration from ideal operations with help of  sensing equipments  through  Inspection .
Heat
Noise
Smell

Equipment used are  Multimeter , Ultrasonic  equipments , Vibration analyser , Decibel Meters ,Infra red  equipments .Now days PLC  based  systems are common hence system health can be checked through various software .

Preventive Maintenance

This is the most common practice for plant maintenance as  this  is based on equipments life  preventive maintenance can be scheduled by number of hours  or  days such as weekly /monthly/half yearly/annually
Preventive maintenance is done with schedules in hand  and  could be planned and required spares could be ordered as per plan .Preventive maintenance main activity can be divided into C-O-T

C  -Cleaning  of equipments .Very Important as majority of break downs happens due to lack of proper cleaning

O - Oiling  or topping  for gearboxes , chain and sprockets , moving parts , lubricating systems .

 T -Tightening of  all fastener which have loosened in operations  or which could  not be done in course of production .

Normally for bakeries  a day is fixed  in a week  for preventive maintenance . Maintenance jobs are listed in the course of the week and all critical repair , replacement and modifications are done on preventive maintenance alongwith regualr maintenance job ( COT )


Break Down Maintenance

Break Down maintenance requires immediate actions as to run the production with quick fix solution or what ever best in that circumstances . Break down maintenance would need to be- re  done when we take preventive maintenance of the equipment. This may require certain by pass , modification and alternation from basic set up.For such type of maintenance skill  and level of experience of the technician comes into  role .Therefore training and seminars must be conducted to improve the analytical and trouble shooting skills of the technicians .





Records  or Log books

Maintenance log book should be filled or written by shift technicians on observations during  break downs such as action taken ,material repalced or repaired  and  job to be done by the next  shift personnel . The log book should be the basis of any major overhaul during  preventive maintenance . Other important documents and records which are to be maintained are

Checklist for equipments

Layout Diagram of Machinery

Operations and Maintenance Book from Manufacturers

Circuit Diagram
Cross Section Diagrams

Safety Precautions during maintenance

These also helps in root  cause analysis  of the problem
Circuits //layout / cross section diagrams  along with Operation and  Maintenance manual to be  kept handy and to  ensure that they are available  for study . This is very important for maintenance activity.

Bakery  Plant Maintenance Management System -part 2 
How to be more productive at work place