For 40 years, Aspire Bakeries has been a leading producer of baked goods across the United States and Canada. The company operates 13 facilities, including a notable one in Casey, South Carolina, where 367 employees produce an astonishing 3 million pounds of baked goods each week. The facility’s daily output comprises 2.1 million cookies, 500,000 muffins, and 1.2 million loaves of bread, facilitated by round-the-clock operations over five to six days a week.
The Casey Bakery maintains a rigorous preventive maintenance program. This includes a detailed 52-week plan focused on corrective repairs and scheduled maintenance. The company employs a suite of tools, including Fluke multimeters. The work order system provides PM notifications, which helps operations run smoothly and streamlines repairs in an emergency.
Aspire team members prioritize critical production equipment such as ovens, mixers, conveyors, and palletizers. But the Casey facility lacked an effective method for detecting compressed air leaks. One recent incident cost the company tens of thousands of dollars and hundreds of production hours. Since Aspire already trusted Fluke for preventive maintenance, it turned to Fluke again to help solve the problem and prevent it from happening in the future.
Challenges
The Casey facility faced a significant challenge with leaks in its compressed air system, particularly from four major compressors. These leaks cause added drag on their compressors, resulting in excessive energy consumption. As some of the most energy-intensive equipment in the facility, the compressors' inefficiency had a substantial impact on both the production process and energy bills, with wasted energy costs up to 20% annually.
The compressed air leaks had a multifaceted impact, affecting not only energy costs but also unplanned downtime and production efficiency. The facility recorded more than 100 air-leak related downtime events over the course of a single year. Each of these had an impact on the facility bottom line. It became imperative for the Aspire team to address the air compressor leaks to improve operational efficiency and save money.
Solutions
To tackle the issue, Aspire began with a comprehensive data-gathering initiative. At the Casey facility, technicians installed Fluke 1730 Energy Loggers to monitor air compressor energy consumption. This established a baseline for energy usage, quantified waste, and set the stage for effective remediation efforts.
Then, the team was introduced to the Fluke ii910 Precision Acoustic Imager. The Acoustic Leak Detection technology utilizes an array of microphones to detect sounds outside the human hearing range and then displays those sounds on a screen to visually pinpoint with high accuracy where leaks exist. Aspire has not found success with alternative tools to perform the same tasks at the Casey facility “We had an ultrasonic gun, but it didn’t pinpoint anything,” said maintenance lead Tracy Spearman. “The noise is so high in the facility that when you try to use it, the tool picks up every sound around.”
Use of the Fluke ii910 to find compressed air leaks marked a major turning point in the facility's maintenance strategy. The team was able to quickly and with great precision identify the leaks and know where to focus repair efforts. The acoustic imager's ease of use and ability to estimate potential savings from each repair made it an invaluable asset in the facility's preventive maintenance program.
Results
During an initial walkthrough of the Casey facility, the Fluke ii910 Precision Acoustic Imager proved its worth by accurately locating several leaks, some of which were hidden underneath equipment or within cabinets. These spots typically remain unchecked, but the acoustic imager’s advanced scanning ability made it possible to investigate hard-to-reach areas.
The device also identified leaks at connection points of actuators, crucial for the movement of conveyor systems and doors along the production lines. The ease of use and the imager's effectiveness to detect a range of leaks underscored its value as an essential tool for the facility's maintenance strategy.
After the leaks were spotted, technicians extracted detailed reports from data stored in the acoustic imager. They attached these findings to work orders to streamline the repair process. The plan emphasized the correction of current issues and adoption of a proactive approach to maintenance that would utilize the imager's capabilities to prevent future leaks and associated costs.
The team's firsthand experience with the Acoustic Imager during the walkthrough was overwhelmingly positive. The device's simplicity and the immediate visual feedback on leak locations facilitated a highly effective and efficient inspection process.
“I had my hands on the tool for quite some time. It’s very intuitive, easy to use,” said senior maintenance manager Josh Harp. “The graphic user interface is easy, simple as holding up, scanning, looking for hotspots. You see the decibels right on the screen.” The Fluke ii910 also determines the cost associated with each leak, giving technicians a real-time estimate of how much the company can save after completing repairs and helping in the prioritization of repairs.
“At the end of the day, we try to be great stewards wherever we can,” says Director of Indirects, Capital and Capabilities, David Allen. “This isn’t just about the efficiency gains and dollar savings. If we’re reducing our electrical intake, we’re reducing carbon emissions, and that’s good for everyone.”