Got a question? Speak to our industry experts on 01473 461800
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It’s that time of year again… As peak production looms, here are 6 easy ways to help you manage it.
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Rising energy prices and economic uncertainty means reducing downtime and increasing efficiency on production floors is more important now than ever before. Below we’ve listed our 6 easy tips that will make a big difference when it comes to managing peak production. Implementing these small measures will increase the overall efficiency of your team, ensuring your operations continue to run smoothly – and profitably - over this busy period.
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1. Suitable equipment to manage increased ingredient volumes
Increased line output usually means increased volumes of ingredients needing to be managed. Ensuring you have an organised, colour-coded system of quality storage containers can prevent mistakes and reduce downtime.
With sizes ranging from 15L to 140L, Klipspringer’s range of materials handling containers are ideal for managing increased ingredient volumes, and are available for same-day despatch. Indelible marking is also available for product/ingredient traceability and segregation of allergens or recipes where required (see point 4).
New product runs, fresh recipes, additional allergens, engineering maintenance, shorter hygiene windows... In peak periods such as Christmas production, the need for temporary segregation is everywhere, and often at short notice. Many proactive and lean factories are using SegriScreen X-TEND for this exact reason.
As the latest addition to the SegriScreen family, it's available in multiple sizes, colours and with bespoke printing messages.
Simply connect the screens together to form a continuous, highly-visual and waterproof barrier which spans production lines, cordons off areas at risk or creates temporary room partitions. When finished, nest them neatly in the corner or wheel them to the next location.
The human brain processes images 60,000 times faster than words. This makes it important to make instructions as visual as possible for staff (especially new recruits and temporary agency staff) as well as ensuring the signage is in the right location. Whilst visual management isn't a new thing, it's rapidly becoming embraced in a wider sense, to overcome language barriers, show quality standards, signify CCPs and reinforce other training points.
As well as magnetic and wall-mounted signage, several large factories use the Unipole from Klipspringer so that messages such as allergen controls and listeria hot spots are clearly visual yet mobile. Magnetic mounting is becoming an increasingly popular option for training 'on the job', as it prevents compromising hygienic wall cladding - saving time, damage and bacteria harbourage. It is also very cost-effective for messages that may need to be updated at regular intervals.
With endless uses, IndeliMarking has given many food manufacturing sites the equipment identification needed for audit compliance and full equipment traceability. Whether it's operative names, food contact types or department areas, IndeliMarking ensures that equipment doesn't go wandering.
Not only has it been proved to reduce equipment replenishment costs, it also stops utensils drifting between departments and workers.
Klipspringer's unique laser-marking technique allows equipment items such as production utensils, thermometers and even pens to be indelibly identified - in a completely food-safe way.
Numerous factories are faced with extra workers and higher production volumes through Christmas production season, a time when handheld equipment items are in high demand. Especially with new or temporary staff members, this not only leads to missing tools and wasted time, but also 'alternative' equipment being used to complete the task - risking hygiene and foreign-body non-conformances.
Hundreds of factories have implemented shadow boards as a way of mitigating both Covid's potential to spread and also reducing production downtime, as they ensure that handheld equipment items are always accounted for. With bespoke board designs and a wide range of mounting options - including magnetic - fully customised shadow boards can be delivered on site in just 3-5 working days.
6. Eliminate wasted time on thermometer verifications
Manually verifying your thermometers and probes using ice and boiling water is a time-heavy, laborious task, which is all the more painful when time is short. While some sites resort to test caps or electronic simulation verifiers, most teams have identified that these do not check the accuracy of the thermometer probe, which is where most inaccuracies occure.
Thermometer verification can easily be streamlined using Klipspringer’s LazaPort family. Not only does this free up time for those verifying, it is also much more consistent and reliable than traditional methods (including traceability to UKAS). For larger sites verifying probes daily, Klipspringer’s LazaPort8 is the perfect time- saving solution, giving your team peace of mind and ensure you remain audit-ready.