Recently, the Kellogg’s Bakery in Rome, Georgia, hosted the Northwest Georgia GaMEP Advanced Manufacturing Consortium for a deep dive learning event on, “Predictive Maintenance.” The speaker, Jeff Craig, Reliability and Maintenance Professional with Fuss and O’Neill Manufacturing Solutions, presented to the group on how to create a more efficient and accurate maintenance plan using tools to collect data and monitor equipment in real time.
Then the group took a tour of the bakery, testing out monitoring tools such as thermal imaging cameras and vibration sensors, many of which were inexpensive solutions that connect to smart phones to display images or record data.
Finally, the attendees met back to discuss the “plusses and deltas” of the tour, noting great ideas and examples seen in the host plant, but also sharing suggestions and opportunities for improvement. Paula Glover, Enterprise Engineer with Shaw Industries said, “The deep dive event allowed me to benchmark and bring several ideas back to our plant that we could use almost immediately.”
Predictive Maintenance is just one tool of the Total Productive Maintenance system (TPM.) Equipment-related problems can frequently lead to safety, quality, productivity, and customer delivery issues. TPM is a proactive approach to equipment maintenance that alleviates the stress and frustration caused by breakdowns and reactive maintenance programs, leading to higher levels of uptime/output and lower costs. Sound like something your company could use? Contact your Region Manager for more information.
Interested in networking and benchmarking with other manufacturing companies at events and tours? Find out more about our peer-to-peer learning groups or check out our events page for an upcoming opportunities.