Lean manufacturing in Food Processing

More flexibility for short runs, and quick clean-up for rapid change-overs, Lyco Manufacturing jump-starts commercial cooking-cooling into high efficiency

For well over 100 years now the model of manufacturing in the United States has been dominated by the 'Dedicated Line' principle of manufacturing - which dictates that if a manufacturing line is set up to produce one product then this will optimise the line usage for greatest efficiency and profitability.

This has been the production norm for dozens of industries, including food processing.

But times are changing - in the food arena, American appetites for specialty, fresh and more healthy prepared meals has been growing over the past few decades, picking up steam in the mid-1990s, and continuing to expand since at a voracious rate, showing no signs of slowing.

Food processors have had to re-adjust their thinking, and production lines, to keep pace with this shift in consumer trends, which has seen its biggest growth in both fresh and frozen entrees.

Shorter runs and wider product selections, which have been the production staple in the European food market forever, are now necessitated in a growing number of US food processing facilities to accommodate for the increased desire for these trendy foods.

Many companies, however, have been reluctant to make the change to short runs because of the investment required - both in equipment, and in the increased down-time and labour hours associated with more frequent line change-overs.

Lean manufacturing means a reduction of waste, it incorporates shorter runs, faster change-overs and smaller inventories.

And that includes flexible equipment.

The problem with lean manufacturing short-runs lies in the down-time consumed to make the change-over for the next run.

This means cleaning the equipment for each change, and therein lies the line inefficiency bottleneck.

Where a processor was used to running one product through a process line continuously, now may be running a different product every day, or twice a day, and may have the necessity to run 8 or 10 products a day, limited by change-over time.

On a standard commercial cooker/cooler rotary drum, it would typically take two hours to complete the cleaning for a line transition.

That makes it impractical to execute more than one transition per 8-hour shift.

Recent developments in food industry lean-manufacturing with cooker/coolers have significantly minimised the cleaning change-over on short runs to as low as 15 minutes, and on a totally automated mode without the need for manual labour.

This can accommodate for as many as two product change-overs per hour, or 16 change-overs per shift.

Allowing for maximum flexibility and efficiency in lean manufacturing for food processors.

This new cooker/cooler technology, called Clean-Flow, developed by Lyco Manufacturing, uses the Lyco rotary drum system, which provides water injection for agitation that keeps the product in uniform suspension while moving through the unit.

The Clean-Flow design begins with a very accurately made screw similar to that used in a screw blancher.

It resides in a stationary wedge-wire screen that encapsulates the screw from the 3 to 9 o'clock position.

The tolerance between the screw and the screen is less than one-half a grain of rice.

The water agitation injected through the screen keeps the product off the floor of the screen, where it is maintained in total suspension.

Damage to fragile product is a fraction of one percent, and even less than in a rotary drum.

Clean-up time is reduced from hours to minutes in the Clean-Flow design because the screw is totally exposed for cleaning.

During clean-up the screen is released from its fixed position, and is continually rotated 360 degrees around the screw alternately exposing the interior and exterior of the screen to 'Clean-in-Place' manifolds located in the cover of the machine.

The screw can be rotated at the same time as the screen, again exposing all surfaces to the cleansing water sprays.

Clean-up times depend upon the types of product being run.

Vegetable matter is relatively easy to remove, but products with starch - such as pasta, rice and sugar - take longer to clean.

Clean-up times can be reduced as much as 75% compared to conventional rotary drum blanchers.

"Food processors are more and more concerned about quick change-over, faster clean-up time or turn-around time," says Dave Zittel, founder of Lyco Manufacturing.

"This trend is taking place around the globe to accommodate the needs of more diverse consumers.

Sanitation and clean-up times are factors that have become critical to food processors: Imagine wanting to run five different products in a day, but if it takes 1-12 hours to clean up the machine there obviously is not enough time in a shift to do it.

Clean-Flow meets the needs of quick change-over by speeding up the sanitation process, which provides the flexibility to run a variety of different products daily on the same line.

This design revolutionises the processing industry that blanches or cooks products in rotary drum blanchers".

Dedicated production lines will continue to have their place in the food processing industry.

But, the need for specialised, flexible runs, with the ability to rapidly change from one product to another, is an inevitable evolution in progress.

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