BM0610-OR Gold Standard

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Volume 10, Number 10, October 2006
A Penton
Publication
www.bakery-net.com
Aggressive upgrades
pay off for
Gold Standard
page
page 18
18
Selecting the ideal
dough conditioners
page
page 26
26
Pack Expo
success story
page
page 39
39
The Bama Cos. Part V:
Product development
page
page 40
40
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OPERATIONS REVIEW
Investments are the
Gold Standard
This Chicago-based bakery continues to ramp up its investments in
automated production equipment, recently completing its
10-year automation plan in less than four years.
By Keith Seiz, contributing editor
hen the Caparos family
acquired Gold Standard
Baking in July 2002, they
formed a comprehensive 10-year plan for
growth and future capital investments.
In its goals, the Chicago-based bakery
wanted to invest in an automated laminated dough line that would give the
bakery the flexibility to produce a wide
variety of quality croissant products by
W
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Baking Management
its fifth year. By year 10, the company
wanted to install a new oven and
proofer, and completely automate its
production system.
However, growth, ambition and fearless determination toward constant
improvement significantly accelerated
the bakery’s plans. “We reached our five
year plan in our second year,” Yianny
Caparos, Gold Standard Baking’s pres-
October 2006
ident says. “We reached our 10-year
plan in less than four years.”
Yianny is one of three family members guiding Gold Standard Baking.
Yianny’s brother George serves as vice
president, and Constantin, Yianny and
George’s father, is general manager.
The Caparos family acquired Gold
Standard Baking from East Balt
Commissary in 2002, and has invested
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Gold Standard Baking purchased
its automated laminated dough
line ahead of its projected
growth and investment plan
timeline. The line was purchased
in year two, but the company
hoped to have it by year five.
heavily in automating and improving
the bakery’s production process. The
company’s first major investment was a
automated laminated dough line from
Rademaker, which replaced a semiautomated older line.
“After we bought the laminated
dough line, business started growing
the way we anticipated it,” Yianny says.
“We immediately knew we had to
upgrade the rest of the facility, which
meant eliminating every area where
manual labor could jeopardize the
quality of the product.”
The addition of an automated laminated dough line improved the company’s quality and capacity. Unfortunately,
the addition also created a massive bot-
tleneck at the proofer and shined a
spotlight on the deficiencies of the back
end of the bakery’s production line.
Gold Standard Baking resolved
these deficiencies by revamping its
Gold Standard Baking relies on manual labor in the back end of its
laminated dough line.
20
Baking Management
October 2006
entire process with new equipment,
processes and technologies. This
investment cost $5 million, a sizable
commitment for an intermediate-size
bakery, especially considering the size
of the company’s initial investments to
purchase the bakery and the laminated
dough line.
Investing in the future
Investing in the latest automated
equipment is a core tenet at Gold
Standard Baking. The company is
always looking at new equipment
and processes that will make the
bakery more automated, faster and
more efficient, Yianny says. Even
more important is the quest to maintain quality.
“Every day I think about how I can
maintain a competitive advantage and
still be a low-cost producer,” Yianny
says. “Most of the time, the answer is
automation.”
The company’s latest investment
to automate the back-end of its line
significantly increases capacity, efficiency and quality. The bakery’s
goal from the start of the project is
to eliminate all manual labor and
human handling of products. This
is an ambitious goal considering
that the company relied heavily on
manual labor after the makeup
department.
Before automating the back-end of
the line, automated production halted
after croissants passed through the
makeup line. Employees pulled pans
of product off the makeup line, placed
them on baking racks and transported the racks to a roll-in proof box.
After proofing, employees rolled the
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Page 21
croissants a week to 4 million croissants a week.
After Gold Standard Baking installed its automated laminated dough
line, croissant production increased from 400,000 croissants a
week to 4 million croissants a week.
racks out and manually placed the
racks on the front end of a tunnel
oven. After baking, employees again
racked the pans and allowed them to
cool. Once cooling was complete,
products were manually depanned and
packaged.
Today, all of these steps have been
eliminated and replaced with automated processes that improve quality,
reduce the company’s labor by 20%
and increase output from 400,000
Process upgrades
Gold Standard Baking employed
Dunbar Systems to serve as project
manager for the capital investment
project. “For a company our size, we
don’t have a corporate engineering
department and our chief engineer is
consumed with the day-to-day operations of the plant,” Yianny says. “It was
extremely important to have a project
manager that acted as an extension to
our engineering department.”
The project’s first major challenge
was coordinating installation without
significantly hampering production.
This was accomplished through a
combination of increasing frozen
inventory and working on weekends,
when the plant sat idle.
During the first phase of the installation, the company installed conveying
systems from Benda Manufacturing
Inc., and an I.J. White Spiral cooler.
Next, the company installed a ser-
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Baking Management
21
BM0610-OR Gold Standard
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5:11 PM
pentine proofer that rests on stilts
above the oven. Since installation, the
automated proofer greatly has
increased capacity and efficiency. “Our
proof times went from 120 minutes to
80 minutes because we have complete
control over the environment.
The 130-ft. proofer also improves
quality through its stabilized tray
design. Pans are transported directly
onto stabilized tray holders, which prevent the pans from swinging or moving
as they pass through the proofer.
After the overhead proofer was
built, the company installed a
100-ft. tunnel oven under the proofer.
The new tunnel oven provides countless efficiencies and quality improvements compared to the old oven,
mainly a reduction in bake time from
17 minutes to 12 minutes.
The new oven’s mesh belt accounts
for most of the reduced bake time. The
company used to bake with a directfired oven that applied bottom heat to
a steel hearth plate. The new oven features bottom and top burners, and the
Page 22
Another recent investment was Gold Standard’s automatic depanning system. The company also purchased a pan return system.
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Baking Management
October 2006
BM0610-OR Gold Standard
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Page 24
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24
Baking Management
October 2006
mesh belt allows hot air to be circulated around the pan and
the product. The new oven also is PLC-controlled, allowing
the company to control temperatures in each oven zone.
After the proofer and oven were installed, the company ran
a series of manual tests to ensure ideal performance before
bringing the new systems online.
Besides proofing and baking, Gold Standard Baking
also purchased automatic depanning equipment, a pan
return system, a basket washer and a pillow-pack packaging system.
Future investments
In their short tenure as owners of Gold Standard
Baking, the Caparos family has invested millions of dollars
in equipment and process upgrades. Most recently, the
company spent almost $500,000 on a custom-designed
piece of equipment to fill croissants. “Traditional filled
croissants look like rectangles with slits in them,” Yianny
says. “Our new equipment allows us to produce filled croissants in a croissant shape where you can see the filling from
tip to tip.”
The company also has set in motion its latest capital
investment project. The company recently doubled its
plant size by acquiring 65,000 sq. ft. of space in the building the bakery occupies. A second complete production
line is expected to be installed in the new space by June
2007.
•