"Bread" - a study in progressive automation development

Abstract

1. Main objectives: The problems which face a Board of Directors when wishing to advance the technological means are great. It is vital to take an overall company point of view: (1) sales, (2) production, (3) finance, and the combination of all three, (4) growth policy.2. Operational research: It is vital that a company should have an operational research policy and team. Their own team can be aided valuably by outside specialists and consultants who can bring to bear a very wide range of experience from quite different industries. Objective facts then discovered must be assessed against their economic implications. They must be carefully weighed bearing all the above four points in mind.3. Choice of correct approach: Having obtained sufficient facts, management must have sufficient courage to act quickly and adopt a short as well as a long term development and re-equipment policy. One must be conscious that facts of today are not necessarily true of a remote tomorrow and thus the choice of approach should always favour the method and plant having maximum flexibility. Also, the operational research team must continue to function and keep gathering facts, its policy being steered by the results of market research and overall concepts of the Board.4. Serviceability and maintaining the plant: Having chosen as my case study automatic bakeries, these illustrate some most valuable lessons. For instance, one should choose equipment which is easy to service; interchangeable tropicalised control and motor units should be adopted, requiring minimum attention. Encapsulated plugin units which remove the need for scientific trouble-shooting should be preferred. Means of selfmaintenance, e.g. self-lubricating bearings, temperature-compensated equipment, self-cleaning by compressed air blasts, etc., are the kind of facilities that must be planned into automated plants. They should be located in very easily ‘get-at-able’ places on the plant. The main factor which must be kept in mind is that there must be three shifts working with minimum shut-down time to obtain the full benefits of automation.