Computerization

The mainframe, after it compiles the management information for the corporation as a whole, will then communicate to the manufacturing plant location. This plant can be in the same location or anywhere in the U.S. -- or overseas if appropriate. The manufacturing plant computer then can generate production schedules, provide process control information, inventory ingredients/packaging needs and handle warehousing and distribution. This computer also links, through a series of hierarchical steps, all the individual pieces of production equipment, to process stations, to full lines, to the entire integrated plant systems. The effective linking at this level is key to an efficient plant operation.

Flexible Manufacturing, Make-To-Order

In some advanced European bakeries, they create a production schedule that will bake from light to dark bread varieties, and from low to high oven temperatures. This permits a continuous flow of production without carry-over of darker doughs and the need to clean mixers between batches, or wait for the oven temperature to lower for the next batch. Some of these are actually "lights out" bakeries with no people present in the production area at all. The people serve higher-order functions of total quality and process monitoring.

Distribution Driven Production Scheduling

In a conventional plant, the name of the game was to produce the longest production runs possible in a day's schedule -- and inventory the product in an adjacent warehouse. After all the products were made for the day, orders would be assembled from the warehouse for loading the trucks and distributing to depots or directly to the store.

With the total integration of the plant, a few bakeries have made a major change in this step. Instead of long production runs and picking orders from the holding warehouse, computerization and flexible manufacturing has undergone a major change. Production runs as short as 20 minutes per variety are now feasible. This allows a plant to produce the full product mix required for farthest-truck-out distribution. When this truck has left for its run, the next farthest-truck-out production requirements are manufactured and loaded for distribution. This ends with the most local runs produced last.

By use of this distribution-driven manufacturing schedule, the warehouse space requirements are significantly reduced or eliminated entirely. It also permits the distribution run to occur immediately following production thereby assuring a much fresher product arriving at the store for the consumer. This new approach has allowed larger retail bakers to be more competitive with in-store bakeries in terms of freshness, and with the brand identity many consumers still prefer.

Without all the systems from the handheld computers in the field, to the mixers, to the production computers integrated together, this would not be possible. There are currently only a very few bakeries in the United States as automated as this. Many still need to start with the discrete pieces of new technology equipment and control systems before they can realize the Bakery-of-the-Future concept. With the vast majority of bakeries still in the very earliest stages of adopting technology, there is ample opportunity for technology manufacturers to enter the field.