Case study - Plant & Works Engineering

Case study

Published: 10 September, 2015

Iain Hanson, product manager at Brammer said his company was called upon to conduct such an audit at the Banbury site of Mondelez, one of the UK’s best-known names in food and beverage production. This particular facility is the company’s largest coffee plant in the world, with the capacity to produce 100 million jars of instant coffee per year. Brammer provides an ‘Insite’ service to this and four other Mondelez facilities – effectively a Brammer branch on the premises, an Insite supplies and manages a wide range of maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) products including fluid power products, bearings and tools for a customer, and can also be called upon to support value-adding projects.

In one such instance at Mondelez in Banbury, the Brammer team was asked to investigate when an unplanned interruption to freeze-drying operations threatened to impact heavily on output. At the time, air compressors were running at full capacity meaning a considerable amount of air was being lost from the system, potentially at great expense.

Brammer’s immediate compressed air audit and analysis, using ultrasound, identified significant leaks which totalled more than £191,000 per year – to say nothing of the costs of downtime associated with equipment repair or failure. A programme of bespoke remedial action was prepared which at a cost of just £4000 for repair components and materials, delivered a huge saving for Mondelez.

Following the successful repairs, a pneumatic equipment awareness day was organised with support from Brammer and one of its key partners Festo. Awareness of issues surrounding compressed air and engagement among the production team was vastly enhanced, and as a result the facility now conducts an annual survey aimed at identifying and rectifying leaks before they pose a major issue.

For further information please visit: www.brammeruk.com