Rich Arnold has worked in manufacturing and automation for more than 30 years, delivering impressive sales growth wherever he goes. As branch manager at SMC, a manufacturer of pneumatic equipment for industrial automation, Arnold’s strong sales earned him the company’s top salesman award for the Southeast Region. Arnold then served as regional sales manager for Livingston and Haven, winning multiple top performing manager awards, and as national sales manager for Murrelektronik he drove a 32% year-over-year increase in sales in the United States and Mexico. 

Arnold then joined Kliklok-Woodman (now Syntegon), where he said he developed a love for the baking industry.

“I found the equipment fascinating and the people I met within the bakery industry to be exceptional,” he said.

Arnold next served as vice president of sales and marketing for Benchmark Automation before joining Rexfab in September of last year as vice president of sales. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Georgia, as well as a Master of Business Administration from Georgia State University.

While Arnold has earned many individual awards throughout his career, he says he’s most proud of the teams he’s been a part of and had the opportunity to lead. 

“I’ve been blessed to work with some amazing people, and I believe that working in a team environment to get the most out of various gifts is one of my greatest strengths,” he said. “I love solving problems, building lifelong relationships and mentoring team members to reach their potential.”

Arnold said that while implementing larger integrated solutions for customers can be challenging, it’s a lot of fun as well. 

“It’s exciting to walk the line with a sense of accomplishment that we’ve helped our customers take their business to the next level,” he said.

With the rapid pace of technological advancements, particularly surrounding artificial intelligence, Arnold said one of the biggest challenges facing the industry today is a lack of foundational knowledge amongst its workforce. 

“Additionally, the trend toward low-cost labor markets has led to challenges with equipment quality and aftermarket support, impacting uptime and revenue,” he said.

Here, Arnold discusses the many benefits an automated pan handling system can bring to a bakery operation.

What challenges do bakers often encounter in their pan handling operation?

Common challenges include pan damage such as bending or warping due to rough handling, space constraints and plant layout issues, and nonstick coating issues such as scratching or degradation of the glazing, which over time reduces the effectiveness of the coating. Other challenges include the cost of reglazing the pans — which can be even higher with some automated solutions — operator safety concerns such as noise and ergonomic issues, lost production due to equipment downtime, and flexibility needs to handle a variety of pan sizes and shapes.

How can these issues be addressed through automation?

Pan damage can be reduced by using technology that offers gentle handling. Pneumatic equipment has limited control over acceleration and deceleration and tends to slam pans. It also changes over time with wear to further increase the problem. Servo controls with linear actuators offer consistent optimized control to significantly reduce pan damage.

Traditional magnets are effective at picking up pans but rely on mechanical stops to break the connection, which can damage the pans. Electromagnets offer a gentle solution to this problem by simply de-energizing the magnets to break the connection.

Space constraints and plant layout issues can be addressed in a couple of ways. If a customer has an older machine that relies on pneumatics, a drop-in replacement from a size perspective makes the upgrade process much easier. The ability to automatically stack pans on carts provides an ergonomic method to utilize vertical space in the plant and easily move pans to the desired location.

Bakeries spend tens of thousands of dollars to have pans reglazed with a nonstick coating every year. Automated solutions that handle pans without damaging the nonstick coating provide additional cost savings by reducing the frequency of reglazing. Using the optimal amount of force to move pans and having tight control over positional accuracy can provide this benefit.

With automatic pan stacking and unstacking equipment, ergonomic concerns are minimized. Additionally, servo-controlled systems provide this benefit without creating high decibel levels like pneumatic systems.

When the right automated solution is installed with a solid maintenance plan, it “shows up” ready to work every day.  Many US bakeries are struggling to keep lines staffed, especially roles that are difficult from an ergonomic standpoint.  Automated pan stacking and unstacking solutions can enable plant managers to rest easy that this process will be handled in a reliable manner.

Servo-controlled systems offer another benefit to bakeries. Recipe control through the HMI allows operators to change from one pan size to another with the simple press of a button. This provides the capability to handle multiple SKUs with minimal changeover time.

What benefits does an automated pan handling system bring to an operation?

Rexfab has developed a fully electric pan stacking and pan unstacking system. We have developed a proprietary solution that uses electromagnets in coordination with servo-controlled linear actuators to offer gentle product handling.  This system offers several benefits for our customers, including reduced pan damage, lower cost of reglazing by reducing the required process frequency, smaller footprint, recipe control from the HMI to handle multiple pan sizes, fast installation and startup (as little as 3 days), reduced decibel rating, and energy efficiency. 

How can automation improve pan longevity?

Our electromagnets are designed to be the best fit for every pan. By optimizing the force required to lift and maintain control, we eliminate the tendency to use excessive force to separate pans from the holding mechanism. Pan stability throughout the stacking process prevents jams that can damage pans, requiring premature replacement or reglazing. The replacement of pneumatic actuators with servo-driven actuators provides much better control of acceleration, deceleration, position and torque. Gentle motion control profiles prevent damage to glazing and other physical damage.

How can pan handling automation help reduce operational costs?

Bakeries spend tens of thousands of dollars each year to reglaze their pans to ensure a nonstick surface. Modern servo control and electromagnet technology result in longer pan life and reduced operational costs. Electromechanical solutions are significantly less expensive to operate than pneumatic systems. Servos with electromagnets enable bakeries to significantly reduce their energy costs. 

What would you say to bakers hesitant to automate pan handling due to the high capital investment costs?

Are you including all of the operational cost factors in your return-on-investment calculation? These include energy costs, labor reduction, pan replacement costs, pan reglazing costs, lost production and revenue due to damaged pans or machine jams, and exposure to work safety claims. By reducing these costs, a baker can achieve more than $170,000 annually in operational cost savings with an automated pan handling system. 

How can Rexfab’s pan stacker and unstacker resolve labor challenges, preserve pan integrity and boost efficiency?

Rexfab’s pan stacking and unstacking (PS/PU) equipment greatly reduces pan damage through our gentle handling motion control platform and the use of proprietary electromagnets. The elimination of pneumatic components has multiple benefits for the customer. Less chipping of the glazing due to slamming of pans results in savings of tens of thousands annually on the cost of reglazing.

Automatic PS/PU lines greatly reduce the number of operators required to run a bakery. What is even more important is that the roles being eliminated are … particularly challenging from an ergonomic perspective. Studies have shown that these types of jobs are highly impacted by employee turnover.

Rexfab engineering has also made it easy for our customers to replace older pneumatic equipment with our state-of-the-art designs by matching the footprint of some of the more common competitors’ equipment. This results in minimal installation and startup time. We typically offer a three-day installation with day one being old equipment removal, day two being installation of our machines and day three being limited production and dialing in the equipment. It is ideal for a long weekend installation.