Where it Started

In the heart of the Bluegrass State, innovation is not just a concept; it’s a way of life. And at Span Tech, we take pride in leading the charge of ingenuity in manufacturing. There were many unknowns during the pandemic, but Span Tech helped ensure that the supply chain remained priority and that operations for many industries continued.

Baby Formula Shortage

The Outrunner Spiral was pivotal during the baby formula shortage of 2022-23, ultimately helping to save countless infants’ lives across the nation.

An emergency facility was granted and approved by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Our participation in this project required direct communication with White House officials.

This project was rapidly produced in a 6-week timeline with 4 Outrunner Spirals made for the facility and is now operating in the first infant formula plant built in the last 25 years in the United States.

“What we do allows us to give back to the community in many ways. Working on the baby formula line during the shortage provided a great sense of accomplishment for our team as we believed we made a direct impact,” said Aaron Woosley, Span Tech CFO. “Shortly thereafter we had a fundraiser with a local charity to purchase, what else, baby formula. Full circle!”

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Now, Span Tech is calling on the support of its community, customers, and supporters to help secure victory in the “Coolest Thing Made in Kentucky” contest. By casting your votes for the Outrunner Spiral, you can show your appreciation for innovation that makes a real difference in people’s lives.

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“Span Tech is honored to be a part of the ‘Coolest Thing Made in Kentucky’ contest and to showcase the impact of our Outrunner Spiral,” said Thomas Bratcher, Regional Applications Manager.

“It was an honor to help in such an important project.”

1. Your Food-Grade Conveyor Must Be Sanitary

Although this should go without saying, any food-grade conveyor you use must be sanitized throughout the day for optimal food contamination prevention. That means the right conveyor for food processing should be easy to clean with parts that are easily accessible. We recommend food-grade conveyor systems such as wire mesh belt conveyors made from stainless steel or sanitary washdown conveyor systems.

2. Food-Grade Conveyor Systems Should Have Excellent Durability

No matter how small or large your food-grade conveyor is, it should be rugged enough to handle multiple types of food processing applications. This is especially important when production involves significant volumes of material handling. The last thing you want is for any conveyor equipment to suddenly malfunction after many years of reliable service. To avoid this, make sure you order your system from trusted food-grade conveyor belt manufacturers like Span Tech.

3. A Food-Grade Conveyor Must Meet Regulations

Not only should your food-grade conveyor belt material be sanitary to handle various types of products, it must also be compatible with regulations involving the FDA, USDA, BISSC and CE. Otherwise, you may face legal challenges which can put a halt to your production. Fortunately, Span Tech has you covered with microspan transfer conveyor systems and much more industrial equipment that satisfies the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA).

4. Food-Grade Conveyor Systems Should Minimize Costs

A great food-grade conveyor system is capable of moving large quantities of food products at all times. If any aspect of operations gets bogged down, this can lead to unwanted manufacturing or production downtime. Ultimately, this will cut into your profits as less volume of your products will leave the warehouse on time. This can also tarnish your reputation with vendors which can be even more catastrophic. Be sure to only use an automated conveyor system that is fully operational and optimized to your specific food processing needs.

Food-Grade Conveyors & Food Processing

Food processing conveyor belts are helpful for various functions in the food and beverage industries. They ensure the swift and accurate delivery of items for further processing or packaging. For most industries, every food item must pass through the conveyor belt. This means it is easy to contaminate an entire production batch if the conveyor is not adequately clean.

The big concern then is, how do you effectively clean this equipment? Unfortunately, it is not so easy to clean conveyor belts. For most companies, their cleaning techniques do not produce optimal results every time.

Things To Consider Regarding Conveyor Belt Cleaning & Disinfection

There are various regulations concerning food processing conveyor belts. And the European Hygienic Engineering and Design Group (EHEDG) has guidelines for food conveyor belts as well. These regulations aim to ensure total food safety and hygiene. Your conveyor belt maintenance manual should also have some helpful information.

However, there are various things to keep in mind before opting for a standard cleaning method. The following can also help determine how frequently you should clean your conveyor belt.

Cleaning and disinfecting food-grade conveyor systems is not only about hygiene. There are other mechanical advantages as well. Some early signs or markers that will indicate the extent of your conveyor cleaning needs include the following:

Conveyor Belt Cleaning & Disinfecting Methods for Food-Grade Conveyor Systems

Conveyor systems, like easy clean food-grade conveyors, are designed and adapted for heavy washdowns. They make it possible to achieve optimal sanitation efficiently and safely. A new technology involves the use of an autonomous tensioner and provides more efficient and cleaner tensioning.

There are various conveyor belt cleaning methods. The level of contamination and type of food conveyor often determine the method used.

Manual Cleaning Methods

You can clean your food-grade conveyor belt using some manual methods. These include:

Manual cleaning is labor-intensive and consumes a lot of time. Thus, it could delay production and reduce the company’s productivity. For these reasons, it might not be the best cleaning method. It is an affordable method, though. So, it could be effective for small food processing companies.

There is another limitation to manual cleaning, however. It might be impossible to reach some parts of the conveyor belt. In order to reach these inaccessible parts, you may need to fully dismantle the equipment, which is certainly not ideal.

Some of the tools you might require for manual cleaning include a water brush, brush cleaner, a roller and a wash box.

Semi-Automatic Cleaning Methods

Cleaning can be semi-automated. More extensive processing plants commonly undertake it. With this method, some parts of the cleaning process are automated while other operations are done manually. The automated aspects include dry vacuuming, spraying and rinsing. Brushing and scraping are manual operations in semi-automated cleaning.

Semi-automated cleaning is considerably faster than pure manual cleaning. It is, however, still laborious and time-consuming for larger processing plants. You could also need some of the materials mentioned in manual cleaning. This includes the cleaning brushes and wash box.

Fully Automatic Cleaning Methods

As you can see, there was a definite need to find a cleaning method for food processing conveyor belts — this ideal technique needed to reduce equipment downtime and be cost-effective. Automatic conveyor belt cleaning uses a mechanism called a clean-in-place (CIP) system. It is less laborious, ensures safety and reduces downtime.

Some belts use compressed air. This installation permits sustained airflow through the belt. It is an expensive method but quite effective. The return on investment (ROI) is quite reasonable as it drastically reduces spillage and ensures optimized production.

How To Clean A Belt with Dry Steam and CIP

For better results, you can combine dry steam with CIP to clean a food-grade conveyor. Dry steam has just 5% moisture content in superheated steam. This has a remarkable sanitizing effect that will rid your belt of oil, soil and other contaminants.

Using a CIP dry steam cleaner technique conserves a lot of water. Unlike the usually wet steam, dry steam saves you up to 98% water with a steam temperature of 290 °F. Therefore, there is no hiding place for microbes to go. The belt also dries almost immediately.

Defining the Material Staging Process Flow

Before we explain how Span Tech incorporates a material staging process flow, it’s important to understand what the concept is and how it works. What is staging in manufacturing? Simply put, material staging is transferring the items needed from different work centers to the assembly location. Materials are staged for production at a certain time, in a particular quantity, and at a designated staging area.

In warehouse manufacturing (WM), the flow of this process must be strategically planned and assessed for the best possible business structure. This form of production planning (PP) is a crucial part of your brand’s success and, when executed correctly, the process can help employees work more efficiently in the long run.

How Do You Do Material Staging in SAP?

Systems, applications and products (SAP) create a centralized system for manufacturers that enables the team to access and share data to create a better work environment for each employee on staff. Material staging in SAP requires gathering production items to be ready at a certain time and in a particular quantity. Using an SAP PP WM material staging system helps ensure all the required materials are in the designated production spot.

Once a production order is created, the SAP determines the necessary actions for material staging. In doing this, it examines the control cycle and determines the production storage bins in which the materials should be staged. Once this is complete, automatic material staging is activated in the SAP, and goods are transported to the correct production locations.

Integrating material staging in SAP WM helps production plants operate in an organized, effective manner that keeps business right on track.

Adopting a Material Staging Process Flow at Span Tech

Now that we’ve gone over all the essentials, we can get back to Span Tech’s experience with material staging in SAP. Before implementing this process, we realized our team often spent a great deal of time away from production to do the following:

The solution was to come up with a way that allowed production to continue without losing valuable time looking for parts. As Shakespeare once said, “All the world’s a stage.” Span Tech has taken that and put it into action with our material staging in SAP WM.

How Span Tech’s Material Staging Process Flow Works

Our material staging process flow is carried out with attention to detail and the utmost organization. It takes place in the following steps:

This process is proving to be quite successful and extremely beneficial. Our awesome assembly team has been able to complete many jobs ahead of schedule and keep overtime to a minimum. Our goal is to eventually move this staging process to all of Span Tech’s work centers.

What is Goods-to-Person Order Fulfillment?

Goods-to-person order fulfillment in a warehouse involves the automatic transportation of products directly to operators as needed. This method combines computerized storage with strategic, ergonomic item picking processes. When a new order must be fulfilled, automated storage and retrieval systems (ASRS) and mobile robots collect goods from their places of storage and deliver them to the appropriate workstation. Depending on the item’s size, that workstation can be a pallet or tote-based system and include horizontal or vertical carousels.

The goods-to-person system is fairly new in the manufacturing and distribution industry compared to the person-to-goods system. As a more traditional approach, person-to-goods order fulfillment consists of employees taking the most efficient paths to manually retrieve necessary items.

Before the days of eCommerce, it was more acceptable for pickers to utilize the goods-to-person system. They would spend a majority of their time traveling throughout a warehouse to locate products and the rest of their time selecting them. In modern times, however, warehouses are storing much more inventory and must meet rising demands for fast deliveries. Goods-to-person systems are proving effective in helping distribution centers address their needs.

Benefits of Goods-to-Person Systems

The goods-to-person process offers a great deal of perks to warehouses and helps give companies a competitive advantage in their industry. Adopting automated picking systems like this can provide the following advantages:

Greater Levels of Productivity

Since goods-to-person order fulfillment runs on automation, it allows your warehouse to run at a greater level of efficiency. Through the use of state-of-the-art technology, your staff will have the ability to meet peak demands and fulfill orders seamlessly.

Improved Accuracy

Automated picking systems help eliminate the risk of errors like selecting the wrong item or sending a product to the wrong location. You’ll avoid spending extra time and money that are required when errors are made, like having to resend products or search for inventory a second time. The fewer mistakes your distribution center makes, the more satisfied your customers will be.

Reduced Labor Needs

In the traditional person-to-goods system, warehouse workers must undergo a great deal of physical labor. From pushing heavy carts to running back and forth with retrieved items, these actions can lead to injuries and worker’s compensation claims. Automated picking systems like goods-to-person help alleviate these demands and can reduce the risk of work injuries as a result.

Increased Sanitation

In the age of social distancing and contactless delivery, a sanitized item picking process is more important than ever. Since the goods-to-person method involves minimal human contact with products, order fulfillment is as germ-free as possible.

Effect of COVID-19 on Production & Consumer Behavior

COVID-19 introduced a great deal of change to the economy and affected businesses throughout the world. Along with this, consumer behavior has been influenced in the following ways:

The Impact of COVID-19 on Global Manufacturing Sectors

Among every industry affected by COVID-19, the manufacturing world was among those hit the hardest. The virus originated in China, which is also the location of many factories that supply important materials to manufacturing units worldwide. When lockdown ensued, the pandemic’s impact on the manufacturing industry took a great toll. The following global manufacturing sectors have been most affected:

Pharmaceuticals

Typically, the USA and many other nations source materials for pharmaceuticals directly and indirectly from China. When the virus began to spread, however, it limited operational capacity in China and caused supply shortages.

Additionally, the pandemic outbreak made the need for items like sanitizer and PPE more important than ever. As a result, pharma manufacturers have had to invest a great deal of time and resources into increasing production levels of these products.

Food & Beverage

When COVID-19 first began to spread, so did the general public’s panic. As consumers went to grocery stores to stock up on food, it caused various supply chain issues. With scarce shelves, stores have experienced significantly increased consumption, and companies have needed to boost production to keep up with demand.

Cosmetics

As a result of offline stores closing worldwide, the cosmetics industry has experienced a decrease in sales. Additionally, when many countries were under complete lockdown, it was challenging to find markets where these goods could be exported. Labor shortage and reduced demand have caused manufacturers to shut down their production units.

Responding to the Pandemic’s Impact on the Manufacturing Industry

Problems in the manufacturing industry due to COVID-19 have led to reduced demand and disrupted supply chains. But they’ve also presented opportunities for growth, innovation and competitive advantage in the industry. To bounce back from the impact of COVID-19 on manufacturing industries, we recommend your facility does the following:

Implement Increased Sanitation & Safety Procedures

Taking proactive measures can help keep your team safe and prevent the spread of harmful germs and bacteria. From banning visitors on factory floors to increasing the amount of distance between your staff, there are numerous procedures you can implement. Doing this will give your team peace of mind and help create a more hygienic workplace.

Find Back-Up Suppliers

When countries went into lockdown, many manufacturers experienced a lack of access to suppliers. This pandemic impact on the manufacturing industry caused many production processes to cease. To avoid this happening in the future, revisit your factory’s sourcing strategies. Consider where you get the supplies to create your company’s products. If another disaster were to strike, would you still have access to them? Even if the answer is “yes,” it’s a good idea to seek alternative suppliers and have back-up options, just in case. This could ultimately help you avoid having to pause production and/or shut down in the future.

Examine Your Supply Chain for Areas of Improvement

With or without problems in the manufacturing industry due to COVID-19, it’s always smart to look for ways to improve your production process. Spend some time evaluating your supply chain’s agility and determine opportunities to make it more resilient. Focus on the automation of repetitive tasks and predictive maintenance to help your production process run as smoothly and efficiently as possible.