Making food efficient

An efficient manufacturing process is the cornerstone of any food company’s profitability. However, once that cornerstone is in place, improving it is the key to long term progress. Here, David Bryant, managing director of Major International discusses the company’s continuing development practice in both automation and process improvement. He believes that the company’s future lies in automating processes to improve profitability, customer focus and the company’s positive environmental stance.

Major International was launched in 1989. The Company is owned by Major Products, USA and Danisco Ingredients, Denmark. The company specialises in the manufacture of stock bases, used to create sauces, soups and gravies as well as enhancing the flavour of many savoury dishes. The concentrated paste stocks are one of the lowest salt ranges available in the European foodservice market, helping chefs tackle public and Government concerns over salt levels in food. Major also manufactures a range of marinades for the meat industry. In addition, we have a significant food service customer base, servicing all areas of the food industry including hotels, restaurants, contract caterers, school meals, the hospital sector, HMP and MOD.

Major International’s portfolio consists of a range of 22 stock flavours, together with 12 Mari-Base Marinades and a new Demi-glacé, all of which have been created for today’s busy chef.

Major priorities

Above all, however, Major International is a people business, who are in contact with chefs from the industry on a 24/7 basis. It’s a constant process of developing new products and finding the best route to market. For instance, we are currently planning to launch a new and exciting concept in dry powder products; the new range will only complement our existing lines.

All of our products are manufactured in a purpose built, EU approved factory in Wellingborough in the UK. Improving processes within the factory, in order to make us more profitable and to allow us to provide the best service to our customers is absolutely vital. Paul Roberts, our production manager, has overseen a number of projects since he joined the company from Danisco and he believes passionately in this improvement process: “My goal is to make the flow of ingredients through the plant become continually smoother,” explained Roberts. “I am also continually focused on improving the packaging elements of the equipment. Things like volumetric fillers, conveyor belts and automatic cappers have been a big focus. By improving the efficiency of the process we buy ourselves more time to devise better products and respond in the best way to our customer’s needs. Of course it also saves money but overall the company is about delivering the best quality not the cheapest quantity.”

Making improvements

However, the improvement process also creates benefits in other areas, such as conformity with EU regulations. Claire Hannah, who is responsible for compliance within Major International explains, “Each new piece of automation we add reduces the risk of contamination to our product compared to an equivalent manual step. The more people there are involved in the process the greater the risk of microbiological, chemical or physical contamination. It also simplifies the production of HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Controls Points) reports because the points of interest become easier to monitor. Needless to say, we take compliance very seriously within Major International.”

Another area where improvements in our automated systems are of benefit is our environmental policy. Like all businesses we want to make a profit, but we also want to reduce the emissions we produce in order to reduce the impact on the environment. Amongst the many improvements we have made has been the addition of a new range of bowl choppers in the factory, which have proved to be beneficial in reducing emissions quite simply because they get the job done so much faster.

“We use Laska bowl choppers supplied by Union Food Machinery in Wellingborough,” explained Roberts. “Ours is a natural product with no artificial ingredients. As a result, if, for instance, its base is natural diced chicken, the poultry needs to be fat and gristle free. The preparation of the chicken is still performed by hand and the recipes are developed in house. Once the ingredients have been chopped and weighed they are introduced to the bowl chopper where they are turned into the very smooth paste that we require.”

“The new choppers are 100 per cent better than the ones they replaced; in fact the guys on the shop floor say it’s like moving form a Ford Fiesta to a Jaguar! The blades cut larger slices of meat and they are more robust. They are used for sixteen hours each day and take a lot of punishment and hold up really well. I would say that they represent one stage in the process of improvement. They are part of a solid foundation if you like, something with which to underpin the manufacturing process. We are now able to produce more consistent blends and are able to address further improvements. At present, for instance, we manually fill containers but this might prove to be a profitable area to automate. Packaging might also be another area we could improve.”

At Major International we use a KU500 500 litre bowl capacity chopper and a KCU200 200 litre bowl capacity chopper, both manufactured by Laska. Malcolm Burgess, the managing director of UFM believes that Laska’s equipment is perfect for companies who are committed to improving their level of process automation thanks to the sophisticated PLC control options. “Control is essential if you want to maximise the efficiency of this kind of equipment. Furthermore, PLC based control allows you access to additional information that can lead to further process improvements.”

Major International believes in dealing with agents who are able to offer a high degree of consultancy as part of the sales process.

For Major International the most important thing about choosing a supplier is choosing someone whose service led approach mirrors our own. If our suppliers treat the customer as a king, it makes it easier for us to do the same.

Our supplier provided an on site team during the installation process and made site visits earlier in the buying process to offer advice on the type of equipment required. Furthermore, Major International has a service contract with the company which involves twice yearly maintenance visits as well as call out maintenance as required. “We did have to call them out on one of the larger machines at one stage,” explains Roberts. “They responded promptly and it was up and running again in no time. Naturally, if we lost a machine for more than a couple of days there would be a big problem. As a result, we have to ensure that this never occurs and a service contract helps achieve that.”

Because no food processing plant can afford downtime, integration of the bowl cutters into the plant needed to be a simple process that could be easily planned in. While there were some minor issues with arranging for the greater power requirements of the new machinery, on balance the installation was really simple. “Apart from a new power supply and a new fuse board, the only real issue was that these machines are bigger than the ones we used to have, because they have much higher capacities. That’s a problem, but it’s a nice problem because it in turn increases our manufacturing capacity,” explained Roberts.

The continual improvement process at Major International is taken very seriously. Roberts explains, “Most of the efficiencies we have added so far, such as the bowl choppers, have been related to removing manual tasks. We decide if the process adds value to the business in its current form and if it doesn’t we look at making it more efficient.

“For example, one of our processes is to add a barcode on products that go out in small pots. It occurred to me that, while we do this in case our customers need it, there is no legislative requirement for barcodes to be added. So I checked which customers this actually benefited and found out that lots of the customers that were receiving barcodes didn’t use them. As a result, we now print 9,500 barcodes less a week. The barcodes are hand applied; taking about half an hour per batch and we produce about four batches a day so this represents a significant time saving and a significant cut in expenditure,” concluded Roberts.

Paul Robert’s background is in transport logistics and his most recent employer was Danisco. He believes that any company can make significant savings by having someone look at the processes from an outsider’s perspective. “Sometimes, one has to see what people are doing ‘out of habit’ and what they are doing for a valid reason. Changes such as the bowl choppers are a good example of someone from the outside being able to give good advice by looking in on a company.”

Benefits of a site survey

A routine site survey, conducted by production manager Paul Roberts, is part of Major International’s commitment to continual improvement. It addresses existing equipment that could be used more efficiently as well as manual processes that could be improved.

A recent survey discovered that one of the firm’s cooking vessels wasn’t operating at its peak. The steam jacketed system is used for manufacturing batches of marinades weighing up to 1000 kilos per batch. It uses a gravity feed to pass marinade into a six-headed filler for 1.25 litre bottles. The bottles then run on a conveyor through a capping machine and on to an inkjet labeller, then a heat sealer.

However, when the site survey was performed Roberts found that the filling machine was erratic in quantity because the pistons were drawing the wrong amount of liquid. The pistons draw liquid from a hopper on the forward stroke and push it out into the pots on the return stroke. By adjusting them Roberts was able to ensure that the correct quantity was dispensed each time.

Roberts also found a problem with the cap feed on the same machine – the tightening was erratic and the lids kept getting stuck. The solution was to put a vibration strap across the device to stop the caps sticking. The torque was also adjusted and the bottles were centralising over the capping tool.

Roberts then looked at the feed of the bottle into the machine itself. The system uses a friction conveyor belt but the weight of the bottles was not sufficient for it to operate at its optimal level. The solution was to adjust the angle of the guide bars so that the bottles flowed better along the conveyor. Combined with the other improvements, this resulted in twelve bottles, instead of just six as before, passing through at any one time – resolving the weight issue.

There were also health and safety benefits as a result of the review. The bottles no longer need to be manually topped up or tightened so there is now no opportunity for accidents to happen at this point on the line. Less human intervention also makes compliance with food regulations an easier task.

In addition, the speed of the line has benefited enormously, not only due to the mechanical improvements but also because a more reliable system has meant that the batch checking schedule can be revised, saving further time. The checking, cleaning and presentation process on this machine used to take an entire shift. It has now been reduced to just two hours and improved presentation has been an additional benefit.

“When I started my job with Major, I spent months watching the team working,” explained Roberts. “Combined with a systematic site survey this has resulted in some significant benefits. Of course, our customers aren’t aware of the process improvements, just as they weren’t aware of the problems we have addressed. Before this improvement and throughout the procedure they have received reliable service and high quality products. However, now we are able to allocate more time and resources to improving our output, so the benefits of continual improvement in our plant are really beginning to become clear to them.”

In conclusion, the single theme that runs consistently through Major International’s work in improving its processes is the ability to decide whether an improvement takes any value away from the product. The artisan manufacturers that are doing so well in the UK recognise this, as do many of larger retail and food service brands. However, while there is certainly a market for manual processes, we are moving more and more towards and automated factory. When we automate a process, we do it so we can save money and find more time to spend on the customer’s needs.