Minimizing Downtime With Digital Expertise: Q&A With Ryan Van Maasdam of Rome Grinding Options

Sponsored by Rome Grinding Options

Holding manufacturing traces operating has all the time been a high aim of meals processors. However the occasions of the previous few years raised the stakes and exacerbated the challenges – prices rose, lead instances elevated, delivery slowed, and, in what was maybe the largest hit to the {industry}, skilled workers retired, taking their institutional information with them. Based on knowledge from the Manufacturing Institute, the {industry} hasn’t skilled a “The Nice Resignation” a lot as a “Nice Retirement.”

Going through challenges like these, processors are leaning much more closely on their suppliers to assist maintain their gear operating and reduce manufacturing downtime. To offer this help, modern suppliers are leveraging the ability of digital applied sciences.

For its whole 45-year historical past, Rome Grinding Options has been laser-focused on serving to clients get essentially the most out of their gear. The corporate began in 1977 doing restore and rebuilding work for rendering and grinding gear for the meals {industry}. They rapidly realized that they might enhance the design of the gear to make it extra resilient, and in 1988, they constructed their first grinder. As we speak, Rome serves their core sectors of meat, poultry, and pet meals, whereas additionally providing options for the fruit and vegetable, ingredient, seafood, dairy, and recycling industries. With this wide selection of capabilities, it’s straightforward to see why Rome’s motto is “Sure. We grind that.”

In step with its long-standing dedication to serving to their clients succeed, Rome has invested in new digital applied sciences to mitigate the impacts of lingering provide chain disruptions in addition to the continued labor scarcity. To study extra about these applied sciences and the advantages they supply for patrons, I spoke with Rome’s VP of Gross sales, Ryan Van Maasdam.

What are the largest challenges you see processors going through proper now?

Ryan Van Maasdam: The {industry} is coping with two main issues. The primary, and this wrestle is industry-wide, is sourcing cost-effective materials. Lead instances proceed to be longer than they have been pre-pandemic, particularly for stainless-steel, which impacts each gear and components. That is made even worse by the truth that delivery shouldn’t be as quick or dependable because it was.

The opposite large drawback is the lack of institutional information. In lots of amenities, this information is both already gone due to retirements and worker turnover, or it’s on its method out the door.

Rome is leveraging digital applied sciences to assist processors deal with these two issues. Let’s begin with instruments to facilitate changing wearable components.

RVM: So, like I discussed, there have been slowdowns in delivery. “In a single day” too steadily turns into a few days. The worst case situation is {that a} machine goes down and the shopper orders a component for in a single day delivery, however it takes longer than in a single day, after which when it arrives it’s the unsuitable half.

This will occur for a few causes. First, amenities usually have a number of items of apparatus, which can all be configured in another way and require totally different components. Second, there generally is a disconnect between the upkeep technician who’s doing the work and the buying agent, who could not know precisely what they’re ordering –  it’s straightforward to get the unsuitable line merchandise if you happen to’re ordering off of a spreadsheet. 

Clearly, we wish to guarantee that our clients all the time get the best components, so we launched QR codes and digital components lists.

We begin by performing a list of the gear in a plant, after which we offer QR codes for every bit of apparatus. Once you scan the QR code, you see an enlarged model of the gear. You possibly can hover over the half you want and the half quantity will likely be highlighted. This makes it straightforward to order precisely what you want with out having to fret about totally different configurations or coping with spreadsheets.

That’s nice. And what about defending towards the lack of institutional information?

RVM: Worker turnover within the upkeep division might be catastrophic for processors as a result of these workers take a whole lot of priceless information with them. To maintain that information from being tied to a particular worker, we’ve created multilingual educational coaching movies for all of our gear.

These coaching movies obtain three issues:

1. They supply coaching for brand new workers in addition to refresher coaching for anybody who must work on gear.
2. They assist guarantee gear is about up, operated, and maintained correctly so the shopper can get the longest life attainable out of it.
3. They assist us troubleshoot any issues remotely so we might help the upkeep workforce repair points straight away with out ready for us to make a service name.

Having these movies accessible on-demand makes it so our clients don’t must rely as a lot on workers to have institutional information about how the gear works and easy methods to repair it. With the persistent labor scarcity, our clients use these sources far more usually than it will be possible to offer in-person coaching.

What are the primary advantages your clients are seeing from utilizing these applied sciences?

RVM: Downtime could be very costly for processors. We invested in these applied sciences to shorten the time between when an issue arises and when it will get solved. They save our clients money and time by minimizing downtime within the quick time period and growing the gear lifespan over the long run.

These applied sciences have ancillary advantages as properly – for instance, serving to our clients higher perceive the gear and lowering or eliminating journey time and bills for service calls.

At Rome, we function a really face-to-face enterprise. I feel you’d be hard-pressed to search out one other firm that’s in entrance of our clients as usually as we’re. Sadly with the pandemic, we couldn’t do this, so investing in these applied sciences is what we may do to assist from afar.

Even now that the pandemic is now not disrupting enterprise to the identical extent, these applied sciences present ongoing worth for our clients. On the entire, our aim is to be the {industry} go-to for grinder gear, and that features doing no matter we will to verify our clients succeed.

You’re additionally utilizing augmented and digital actuality. Are you able to inform our readers a bit of extra about that?

RVM: Sure, we use augmented actuality (AR) and digital actuality (VR) for our new gear, to assist clients visualize our gear of their facility.

We began this pre-pandemic with the Microsoft HoloLens. Utilizing the headset, you possibly can visualize an entire grind line at precise dimension. You possibly can stroll round and discover the gear, and it’s also possible to see how it will look in your facility. For instance, if it’s essential be sure that a forklift can transfer by an area, you possibly can visualize precisely how large that area will likely be to be sure to have the mandatory clearance. Alternatively, I can come into your workplace and shrink a whole 100-foot grind line right down to the scale of your desk.

All these applied sciences are invaluable for serving to processors make the best gear selections.

To wrap up, what’s a very powerful factor processors can do to be ready for 2023?

RVM: Maintain a list of your day-to-day wearable components, and, if there’s one thing you want, order it now. Don’t wait till your gear goes down – the earlier you order it, the earlier you’ll get it!

Wonderful recommendation! Thanks, Ryan.

To study extra concerning the some ways the Rome workforce can help your meals processing enterprise, go to Rome Grinding Options.