Relying on the total cost of ownership for a piece of equipment can enable bakery management teams to empirically calculate the impact of the equipment’s performance toward the bottom line.

That information should then be used to determine whether to keep maintaining the mixer, proofer or oven or to invest in replacing it. 

Rowdy Brixey, president, Brixey Engineering, recommended answering a list of questions to gather the necessary data.

“How many maintenance hours does this asset require, and how much downtime and waste were coming from this machine? What is the book value, and how much is it costing me to operate it compared with the profit it produces?” he asked.

“Think of it this way: When you purchase a new machine, it has high book value, but over time, it depreciates and is worth less and less,” he added. “As it ages, it costs you more to maintain it in labor, waste and downtime. When these numbers intersect, decisions need to be made. Do you replace it, repair it or rebuild it?”

Tracking each piece of equipment’s downtime and other operational setbacks enables bakeries to drill down to the root cause of production inefficiencies and even customer complaints.

Keep in mind that the problems are not always what they seem at first.

“Sometimes it’s more subtle,” Brixey said. “The oven could be running, but it’s not running well. There may be far too many burners that don’t work or work improperly, and you have to slow down production. You may have poor quality with bread or buns being too dark or too light.”

Always look at the big picture and analyze the situation, he added.

“In a lot of plants, it comes to how you’re cutting your data,” Brixey said. “If you throw everything into one bucket, you may know you’re operating worse than in the past, but you cannot granularly break out that data and see the source of those problems. If you want to make good capital decisions and good MRO [maintenance, repair and operations] decisions on how you invest your maintenance resources, you have to look at each asset.”

Brixey hammered home his point with an analogy using FedEx and UPS’ large fleets of trucks.

“If you’re looking just at how much you’ve spent on fuel and how many miles you’ve driven, you may discover your gas mileage is getting worse,” he said. “If you look at it by vehicle, you may discover 10% of your trucks are getting twice the mileage as those 10% at the bottom that are getting horrible mileage. If you can cut the data, you can discover which equipment needs some extra attention.”

If the information indicates a divider or proofer may need eventual replacement, bakers should next consider how a new asset will fit into the company’s long-term plan.

With today’s backlogs and extended delivery dates for some new equipment, Brixey suggested developing a comprehensive 10-year plan using sales department projections and new product introductions to ensure an operation can predict when to invest so it doesn’t fall short on meeting future customer expectations.

“Depending on the company growth, even a new line can be out of capacity in three years, and if there is a two-year wait on installing a production line, do the math,” he said. “If you’re having 25% growth year after year, what’s your operation going to look like in 10 years? Is this 340-quart mixer you bought going to be big enough? Heck, no. It’ll be out of capacity before you know it.”

The amount of maintenance on a piece of equipment can indicate the need for capital spending, but there are often other factors playing a more important role.

“I think you are forced to invest when you haven’t taken care of what you have,” said Jeff Dearduff, owner of JED Manufacturing Services. “You’ve gotten behind the eight ball here. There’s a certain point where you can’t recover because you let it go too far. The other reasons you invest today are if you want to go faster, want different controls over the process, want a better product result, or you have a new product. Those things all lead to reinvestment.”

Capital investments, however, tend to affect the maintenance department in several ways.

“When you buy a new piece of equipment, much like when you buy a new car, must people expect it would take less maintenance,” Brixey said. “You would have fewer outages. It would break down less often and probably be more efficient than an aged asset or one that hasn’t been well cared for.”

While new lines don’t break down as often, Dearduff suggested the level of maintenance isn’t necessarily reduced with a recently purchased production line, and replacement parts will probably be more expensive than the old ones. As a result, bakeries may need to adjust their expectations when it comes to taking care of shiny, new systems.

“You’re never going to reduce maintenance by reinvesting because it requires the same amount of care. It’s just different,” Dearduff observed. “Sometimes it’s more difficult with new equipment because you need different talent to take care of it if there are new electronics or robotics.”

This article is an excerpt from the February 2025 issue of Baking & Snack. To read the entire feature on Maintenance, click here.