Snack foods manufacturer counts on eMaint CMMS to standardize
practices and extend food-safety record
practices and extend food-safety record
Customer since: 2017 | Food processing
Snack foods manufacturer Monogram Foods has never had a recall during its 14-year history, despite the large volumes it produces. At one plant alone, 1.7 million corn dogs and mini corn dogs are made daily. The extensive line of snack foods includes a variety of meat and pickled products.
To help ensure the continuation of its valued food-safety record, as well as to standardize maintenance practices at its nine plant locations, the Memphis, Tenn.-based company selected eMaint as its computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) software.
BACKGROUND
With 3,554 assets spread across its nine locations, Monogram Foods recognized the need for a centralized CMMS. The right CMMS software would enable maintenance and reliability teams to make data-driven decisions and show executives a more comprehensive picture of overall plant maintenance activities and status.
After a careful search involving multiple vendors, the 5,000-employee organization chose cloud-based eMaint CMMS software to help standardize maintenance and manage its varied assets, including boilers, compressors, packaging machines, slicers, and more.
THE CHALLENGE
When Dee Robison was hired to be the CMMS administrator in 2017, the organization was still using three different systems, and each plant was operating fairly independently. The variety of incompatible software systems made standardizing maintenance company-wide next to impossible. The eMaint CMMS provided the different plants a consistent protocol and interface to make it achievable.
By consolidating maintenance of its multiple plants, the company finally had the means to accomplish several objectives, including standardizing PMs and work orders, controlling purchase orders, and managing inventory and parts expenditures.
IMPLEMENTATION
Robison’s maintenance, buying, and planning background made her a good fit for spearheading the eMaint implementation. As the CMMS administrator, she ensured application consistency, helped coordinate system operations, and made sure that required reports, including safety reports, were being submitted by each plant.
Robison attended eMaint online training sessions and in-person learning opportunities to accelerate her CMMS knowledge and train Monogram employees to use the system effectively. Once employees began using the system’s many features, they could see how the flexible, customizable software could enable them to meet the company’s unique needs. In just a few months, M&R teams and leadership clearly learned where to focus their continuous improvement efforts.
RESULTS
Monogram Foods began streamlining processes, refining workflows, and standardizing PMs. Before eMaint, acquiring accurate data on planned, unplanned, and unaccounted for maintenance time was difficult. With reliable data, it can use the system’s reporting functions to create informative charts and graphs to illustrate operational improvements and plant productivity trouble spots.
It also started establishing asset performance baselines. M&R teams analyze the stored data to identify poor performance trends and discover root causes early.
ACCELERATING THE RELIABILITY JOURNEY
Leaders at Monogram Foods regularly discuss how to optimize the eMaint CMMS capabilities. Most recently, the company implemented Fluke vibration sensors to continually monitor the condition of a critical piece of equipment, a new compressor.
The sensors connect the asset data to the cloud-based eMaint CMMS, enabling teams to view real-time performance data from anywhere using a smart device. Based on this information, the M&R professionals can make on-the-spot decisions. Monogram Foods plans to add more sensors in the future to identify abnormal asset behaviors early and avoid failures before they happen.
BENEFITS
“The eMaint system is easy to use. Once we started using the capabilities, we understood and exploited more of its functionality. The more we’ve used it, the more we’ve seen a return on investment.”
Dee Robison, eMaint CMMS Administrator for Monogram Foods