Canning Line Maintenance
Let’s face it, packaging is a pain. It is the least exciting bit of brewing, and if not done carefully can result in a low yield, oxidised product with a healthy dose of frustration thrown in for good measure!
Mobile canning, like all other manufacturing, has its ups and downs. It is a relatively new and niche industry designed to support the needs of what I would assert is one of the best industries in the world, craft beer production and distribution. Mobile canning provides opportunities for many craft breweries and beverage producers to package their products giving it longer shelf lives and changing the traditional offerings on bottle shop shelves. However, it is still a manufacturing process which comes with a host of machinery, and anyone who has worked intimately with machinery knows it needs regular upkeep to ensure performance. When everything is running smoothly, packaging is blissful and to be honest, quite repetitive!
Repetition is, in reality, the name of the packaging game: the more repetitive the action, the more cyclic the motions, the more harmonious (think glorious symphonies) the parts, the better the end product. This is our goal every day! This is a great goal to have, but also one that is not always attainable. A simple part failure can result in multi-day downtime, wasted product, and possible quality issues. This is where it matters how your product is packaged and who is behind the reigns.
What we do at East Coast Canning
At East Coast Canning we have discovered that there are two major factors that impact the quality of the end product: the first comes down to smart human resourcing (selection, retention, training etc). The second one, which is dependent on the first and just as vital is having a good preventative maintenance system in place. Through operation, machinery parts all slowly wear – that is just a fact of manufacturing. Bearings, cylinders, seals and tooling will all wear despite the best efforts to prevent failure.
We have developed a system at East Coast Canning to monitor mechanical, electrical, and pneumatic systems to make sure that when parts a beginning to behave irregularly, we can swap them out. This includes ensuring the part is on hand before failure or breakdown occurs. We achieve this through routine auditing programs, tracking all quantitative values possible so that we can understand the health trends of each vital piece of machinery. We also have staff dedicated to monitoring these programs and keeping preventative maintenance programs in place and structured.
Predictive and preventative maintenance are the keys to success in packaging, and these practices translate into a better end product for customers. Faulty parts result in product risks, whether through seam integrity, foam characteristics, DO levels, can structural damage, date code issues, or overall presentation. With a solid maintenance program that includes preventative maintenance a packaging company will have less downtime per year, greater efficiency, and a higher quality finished product (just ask us, we have been tracking our systems and improvements!).
Why we do it
Over the last 11 years of operations at East Coast Canning, we have seen over 35 million cans go through our canning lines. Being natural lovers of data and problem solving, all of this experience has been used to understand how and why different parts fail and what we can do to prevent it. Our collective experience has enabled us to figure out which parts we need to have on hand, which ones can be stored in our company HQ, and which we can source easily from reputable local suppliers. Having every single part to a machine on standby would be impractical and quite frankly a waste of money.
All of our data enables us to keep track and estimate when parts will need replacement ensuring we are ready with spares on hand prior to failure. Hyper critical parts have been identified and mostly kept on hand and monitored daily. The less critical parts are monitored on a weekly or monthly basis and the parts are either stored at our HQ or easily obtained by suppliers. Our experience has helped us streamline our processes making our jobs easier, customers happy after a smooth day of canning, and the best possible end product.
How it impacts quality
The saying goes, quality begets quality. We have observed that quality machinery produces a quality product as long as the following two factors are adhered to:
- Investing in the right machine for the right task
- Ensuring uptime through quality parts, quality training, and a strict maintenance program
The first is relatively simple to accomplish with thorough research and adequate finances. The second of these is much harder and more complicated than the first. Even if you have the right machine for the job, if it is not adequately maintained it will not be able to perform the job at hand in an efficient fashion. This shows in the end product.
If you are a customer you should be very interested in how a canning line is operated and if you are a canning line operator/owner you should be very concerned about your machine health and prevention of potential quality issues. The better the upkeep, the more consistent the seams on the cans, the longer the shelf life of the product, and the lower the wastage. One seemingly small failure can have the trickle-down effect which can cause the entire system to perform poorly, affecting the overall product rapidly.
Why it is not easy
If monitoring and ensuring quality was easy, there would be no need for articles like this; however, the harder things in life usually provide the best payoffs. Monitoring machinery takes experience, the right mindset, and somewhere to document any changes or quantitative takeaways. Without all three of these things, predictive and preventative maintenance won’t be nearly as effective.
There are always tough moments in any business where maintenance strategies don’t catch a failure and you still end up with downtime. However, these experiences are times to learn what to monitor better for next time, and what parts you really need to have on hand. Experience makes the whole process easier, and as production time grows, so does the budget which can be used for more spares and training. There is always room to improve and adapt, this is craft beer after all! Each facet strives to be evolving and learning to make the best beers AND the happiest customers!
Through proper maintenance strategies and training, the best beers will stay the best after they have been packaged. Any packaging comes with added challenges and hurdles, but if care is taken to monitor and ensure machine health regularly then the challenges become much more manageable, preventable and predictable. It is time to start thinking of craft canning lines as the pinnacle of process machinery and treat the lines with as much love as we treat the beers. With a quality mindset, a little love, some training, a spares budget, and a maintenance strategy, breweries and mobile canning companies can ensure that their packaging process runs smoothly and that they get the most out of their canning experience.
