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In this episode of the Troubleshooting Innovation podcast, engineering expert Rich Berger talks about the ways a bakery can innovate sustainably, which leads to tangible benefits like cost savings and reduced waste … but also some intangible benefits yet to be considered. Hosted by Joanie Spencer, Commercial Baking editor-in-chief.

Sponsored by Reading Bakery Systems.

Joanie Spencer: In this episode, Dave and I will be discussing listener questions. Dave, you’re very popular! We’ve got a lot of questions to go over. The first one I received pertains to the conversations we had about the evolution of trends leading up to the pandemic and the disruption we’ve seen. Looking forward, this listener wants to know: What is your view of new product introductions into the future? Do you think decisions will be more data-driven?

Dave Van Laar: I think innovations will come at an even faster pace than they have, Joanie. If that doesn’t seem possible, just hang on because you’re going to see it happen. And that’s not because more data is available — we already have data overload in so many areas — but the interpretation of that data is going to become more sophisticated. Just collecting data pushes one into “analysis paralysis,” and nothing happens. We need to decide what to do with that data, and I think that’s where we are getting suppliers in the industry a lot more savvy.

I firmly believe supplier innovation centers play a key role in this whole thing. Equipment manufacturers want to make equipment that meets our needs as bakers, and we’ve seen several sophisticated facilities built in the past few years. These capabilities are just outstanding, both in equipment and ingredient areas. In fact, some of these would rival small bakeries in themselves. I would suggest to stay in touch with your trade journals for open houses that they sponsor. For me, it’s the best way to see new technology but also talk with the engineers for their thoughts on process equipment design. It’s important that we take this data, which we’ve had all along, and really do something with it.

I go back to the ’80s — again, full of stories — when we started collecting all the UPC information at store level, I remember the dream back then was that every time someone pulls a unit off the shelf, it would generate a replenishment order at the factory. Well that didn’t quite happen, but the data is there to do that. For the most part, we’ve used it just to track what’s happened and not what is going to happen. The smart ones are going to take the data they’ve seen and interpret it into something more meaningful than was used in the past.

Spencer: Do you think we could do a better job of tracking what did happen and using it to predict what will or could happen?

Van Laar: I think we’ve always pretty much known the trends. We know them at a much faster pace now. But the entry into market has become so fast for people. I’ll never forget going to meetings with major suppliers, major cookie/cracker/bread companies, and the executives were pushing those people in the labs to come out with more new products. As you and I have talked in the past, a lot of times, that’s where a contract manufacturer comes in because they are more agile than some of the major players.

The people have always been pushing for this innovation. We’ve always had data — we’ve had Nielsen, IRI, all those things — but we’re forced now, in this fast-paced world, to make more sense of that data more quickly.

Spencer: Let’s circle back to talk about the product development. You mentioned the suppliers and the innovation centers, and how some of them rival small bakeries. What role do you see the suppliers — especially those ones with the innovation centers — playing in new product development, moving into the future?

Van Laar: That’s a great question, Joanie. First of all, get connected with those innovation centers. Choose a supplier you’re comfortable with and establish a relationship. That’s what made several people very successful over the years: They found suppliers that could give what they needed, they knew the supplier’s capabilities and they used them. But get to know the capabilities of those innovation centers.

I was impressed to see an ingredient supplier with a creative center larger than what most manufacturers have in-house. They also have the knowledgeable staff right there to assist. There are not many secrets in our industries, although many bakers think they have a lot of proprietary processes, you could be sure a lot of people are aware of what they’re doing.

I believe the combination of a good R&D baker with a smart engineer could come up with about any solution to any new problem … but they’ve got to listen to each other. That’s the key. They need to see what the other is attempting to accomplish and not just pull some solution off the shelf. As a project manager, I’ve spent a lot of time watching R&D, product development people working with equipment and ingredient suppliers. The most success I’ve seen is those that work together as a team and come up with a solution. There’s nothing wrong with that. Some people feel threatened by that, some feel they’re not giving their expertise enough credence. But to me, finding the best resources we can is the best way to solve a problem. These centers have come up because of that. They have sprung up because there is a need. They have seen it, and we’ve actually asked for those from these equipment suppliers. Now they’re there and we need to take advantage of them.

Spencer: I totally agree. The next question we received pertains to innovation when it comes to automation. This listener wanted to know: In your opinion, when do you feel that innovation and automation integration feedback loops and operational confidence will allow a truly “lights out” bakery? How far off is that?

Van Laar: Never. Next question.

But seriously, that’s extremely difficult. The biggest thing that people do not want to hear is the variability of our inputs. We are working with agricultural commodities and there will always be a need for a baker somewhere. I once toured a well-known equipment supplier’s equipment all over their country, which was overseas, and I remember one pizza plant that they had. The process started with pieces of bread that were garnished and baked, and when they took this through the processing area, it was basically dark; there was no one present. They really bragged on that, through the translator, that it just ran itself. And it was running beautifully. But as we continued through the oven room, I just happened to hang back a little bit. When we all cleared the processing area, I saw five or six workers scurry back into the process area with flashlights so we couldn’t see the lights come on. We talk about it, we try, we almost get there … but I’m not sure that a “lights out” facility is really going to happen.

We do, however, need to do more than we’re doing today. Reading Bakery Systems, for instance, has two divisions. One makes and sells ovens and bakery processing equipment; the other builds and sells monitoring equipment that monitors those ovens. I believe there’s opportunity to use information available from that scorpion-type device to feed back to the oven real time, to maintain consistent quality. What we do now is run that device through the oven to see what’s going right or wrong, then make adjustments. We need to bridge that gap between finding out what’s wrong and putting that information back into the oven so it’s self-correcting. I think there’s opportunity there.

Back in the ’80s, we did that on a project where we were going to weigh every dough ball coming off the depositor. It got expensive. It doubled the price of the oven and processing equipment, so we decided not to do it, but it was the way we were trying to go: To get real feedback information back into the processing system. I think that’s one thing where we have totally relied upon our people to do, instead of trying to find automated types of solutions.

Spencer: Do you think we should rely more on the automation for that? And take a little bit of the human error/risk factor out?

Van Laar: I believe we can go further with automation. I believe we can go further with not eliminating the human element, but helping the human element. I was very impressed one day to watch an operation where the information was coming back real time to the operators, and they were making adjustments real time to keep the process in control. We talked about that in a previous episode. But it still required operator interface. We haven’t closed that gap to where we can take that real-time information and make adjustments to the system as we go. So there’s still human interaction that is involved. We’ve made some progress in some areas, but in total, we still haven’t done that.

For instance, the temperature of each zone through the oven, the humidity, the air flow … we can measure all those things. But then what do we do with it? That’s important because the indicator may not tell exactly what’s happening in the oven. Real life may be different inside. That’s why we send a device through the oven to make sure the measurements are correct.

Spencer: We have another question. This person was wanting to tap into your expertise on what bakers need to consider before diving into an automated dosing and dispensing system. What key factors should they be looking for?

Van Laar: That’s a good question. I see it often and, unfortunately, too often with poor results. Choosing the right equipment for an operation is difficult, especially if you’re new in the business or growing to the next level. Almost all companies go to that plateau where they may go from a rack oven to a band oven, they may go from a small mixer to a big mixer, but their lack of knowledge in the industry makes it difficult for them to proceed.

There’s no lack of information available on the internet. Suppliers are available for everything that’s out there. My advice, and where I’ve been successful, is to find a supplier you know of. Ask to see their equipment in action. That’s No. 1: Make sure you’ve covered everything about that person. Don’t just take somebody’s word for it, but ask them if you can go see the equipment running somewhere. Then normally, you get to ask the people that are operating the equipment if it’s meeting their needs. I tend to stay away from brand new things that are introduced without some sort of track record.

The biggest thing to me is that if someone is at that point, think strategically about the whole process. We’re talking about one piece of the process here. How is it going to affect the entire operation? For instance, what capacity do I need today for this equipment? And how much growth do I expect to see? Am I going to buy a 1,000 lb mixer or a 2,000 lb mixer today? Sometimes it may be overkill but my plan is to grow into that very quickly. Then again, how much sophistication and automation do I really need? Looking at: Do I have the people to fill in those areas and not enough capital to really automate? And also, how does that new equipment fit into the rest of the system?

Bottleneck studies are so critical. I’ve been through project management with people in crucial situations where things have failed because of one piece they forgot. For instance, they automated and went to the next level, but they found out the flour delivery system couldn’t keep up. They went to the next level and found out their packaging equipment was the real bottleneck. So make sure you look at the entire line as a whole and plan it such that each piece will develop you toward where you want to go.

There are so many good manufacturers out there, and there are many good used equipment dealers out there. That cuts the lead time down dramatically. They’re not junk dealers; they’re good equipment dealers. You just have to know who you’re dealing with. Look for industry recommendations and referrals for that equipment, and you can see the name on that equipment is what you would get from a new manufacturer. Get one that’s been rebuilt and ready for your service. It cuts down tremendously on time to delivery.

Spencer: It’s interesting to hear you mention getting those referrals from industry colleagues and other bakers. I’ve heard those stories when I’ve been in bakeries with new line extensions. They’ve told me about going to visit other bakeries and really getting feedback on what systems worked well for them and where they saw their challenges. So, that’s one thing we didn’t really talk about. Can you tell me about your experience with getting advice from other bakers, going into other facilities to look at their equipment or to get referrals on a piece of equipment you were maybe looking to invest in?

Van Laar: I have found, especially in cookie and cracker, that’s relatively easy to do if you come toward it in the right way. If you want to just get information that’s not proprietary, that’s non-competitive, and just has to do with that equipment, most bakers are very willing to let people come in and visit. Most of them can be arranged by the equipment manufacturers also. That is so important, to me, that you see the equipment running. It makes a big difference, especially if you have no history with it. They’ll generally tell you what they like and what they don’t like about the equipment. This is a very competitive industry but I’ve found it’s also a very friendly industry. One thing I miss about that is the trade shows. That’s probably where I see the biggest exchange of free information that makes a lot of sense. A lot of business is discussed at conventions that relates specifically to bakers’ needs. We’ve always made the best use of those by having suppliers meet with us regularly at those conventions, but also you can get referrals — getting to know the other people, going to meetings like the American Bakers Association (ABA).

I’ve always said that groups like ABA and other associations out there, the poor suppliers tend to get weeded out. They just don’t seem to survive in an environment where everyone knows who is doing what, and how good they are at it. So, that’s one thing I know that we miss right now: those conventions where we can ask our colleagues what’s going on.

Spencer: I miss trade shows, Dave.

Van Laar: I do too. That was always much of a learning experience, but also a great way to keep up and to know these people. Contacts are so critical. You just never, never know. And when you do need to know it, you better have those contacts lined up, because it’s going to be too late to try to develop that. This industry is terrific for referrals. I’ve called people that couldn’t do it for us but they recommended someone else that could. Just getting to know people face-to-face… This is a very personal business, with getting to know people, and they’ll answer your questions or they’ll tell you where you can find an answer.

Spencer: Absolutely, they will. That’s what I love about this industry. So listen, Dave, I have to tell you that I had a question come in identifying you as a “cookie and cracker industry icon.”

Van Laar: Uh-oh!

Spencer: You do have a storied career, there’s no denying that. And this person wants to know: What has been your most significant challenge in your career and how did you overcome it? On the flip side, was there a challenge that you were unable to fix that you would have just used a magic wand to solve it, if you could?

Van Laar: Oh, the old magic wand I have stored in the back room. Well, Joanie, “storied career” may not be a total accurate description, but I have had a career filled with wonderful stories.

The people I’ve met and worked with have been some of the best people I’ve ever known and continue to know. As we just talked about, those friendships run deep. Even though our industry is extremely competitive, you wouldn’t know it when you do things like what we just talked about: when you need help. These companies help each other when disaster strikes, they offer business to others if they cannot fill their own customers’ needs. I’ve seen plants have major fires, then other manufacturers come in and offer equipment to help get them back up and running. We’ve had people going through the COVID issue, where others have volunteered to help make product for them to get them through the crunch. This friendship that we see there goes beyond business. It lasts a lifetime, and it goes beyond just cookies, crackers and bread. I’ll tell you, Joanie, I’ve seen such deep faith in these people. That may have a lot to do with the way they conduct their business. Their principles go much higher than the store shelf itself.

But the difficult thing also comes back to people. Without question, the most important aspect of our business is the people: people we can count on to execute our plans. We can build the most sophisticated equipment, utilizing the latest technologies, but if the operators are not fully educated and motivated, we can’t guarantee success. This example still amazes me … a major baker installed several new horizontal wrappers. They had all the bells and whistles they could buy. The factory technician from the supplier came and finished the install; everything was working well. The following week, the baker called the supplier and said, “Hey, our equipment is not working. Can you come down and fix it?” So, the supplier sent the tech back into the bakery to adjust the machines. All he did was put them back to the factory specs. All was good again. Unbelievably, Joanie, this happened five times over the next few weeks. Five times, the baker called and said, “Our equipment is not running right.” All the factory rep did, every time, was just adjust the machines back to factory specifications.

We’ve all seen this. We’ve all seen operators change from first shift to second shift to third shift. I’ve often said, “Let’s take the buttons off this equipment. Let’s just put a knob that doesn’t do anything.” Like the old thermostat in my office: It didn’t do anything but it looked good. You could turn it all day long and think it was getting cooler, but it didn’t change anything. Until we can get our operators to buy into new technology and learn how to adjust equipment properly, we’re just destined to failure. And that goes back to education. That goes back to the knowledge that exists, but the issue is how to get it to the people that are doing it. It is more than just a job. How do people use that information effectively?

But it’s hard to blame the bakers, also, as we look at this. Turnover rate is over 100% a year. They get frustrated by investing in people that just go away. They just go somewhere else or don’t work, because sometimes they’re there to not work. We’ve been talking for years about creating careers for our employees. These careers are available; we just need to connect the right people to the right employees. The ABA continues its effort to do just that. Christina Donnelly has been doing a great effort — both with veterans as they get out of the service and also with others — to highlight the careers in the baking industry. If anyone is thinking about how to get into the industry or how to get people motivated, give Christina a call. She can explain what’s available out there. It’s a wonderful career that’s given me so much. I’ve been around the world with it and met so many friends that I still have. I would encourage anybody else to have that same care for your employees that people had for me as I was coming up through the industry.

Spencer: In talking about that knowledge transfer, we spent a whole episode talking about the challenges. Just earlier in this episode, we were talking about the suppliers and the ones with R&D and innovation centers that can help with product development. How do you think suppliers, moving forward with those innovation centers, can also help guide these bakers and participate in that knowledge transfer? How can they use those innovation centers not only for product R&D but also for educating young bakers?

Van Laar: That’s frustrating, Joanie. As I think about that question, Joanie, I think about the beautiful centers that these people have built and how hard they work to get people to come through them. It just amazes me that these things are available to us and we don’t use them as much as we could. They hold open houses, seminars, and I think it’s a huge opportunity for us. As I said, most of them would compete with a small bakery in a lot of areas. Everything is available there. I believe that’s such a thought center that we can make use of, to get the baker and the equipment supplier together.

What I like to see is the people who are really knowledgeable about the equipment and R&D; they know how things interact, they know what the oven does and they also give advice to the engineers to say, “If we could do this, we would be a lot better off.” We used to live in two different worlds where we as bakers would complain about the manufacturers … they don’t do this, they don’t do that. Well, shame on us for doing that if we’re not regularly in their innovation centers, telling them what we need. They’re there! Utilize them. I have yet heard of someone getting kicked out of somebody’s innovation center.

Spencer: That’s a really good point.

Van Laar: And that’s what they want. What more would an ingredient or equipment supplier want than to hear what the user has to say.

Spencer: Right. So listen, I’ve been having several conversations recently about the disruption that’s happening in supply chain right now. It’s really throwing things off-kilter for everyone. How can bakers navigate product innovation in the midst of unusually long lead times on equipment and raw materials if operations are still growing?

Van Laar: That’s an outstanding question that’s so pertinent today. My first thought is to rely on our suppliers even more, and have more constant contact with them. They have alternatives too, but if you shop every time you buy something on price, you don’t get a lot of loyalty out there with the suppliers. I’ve found that there are certain times you need to keep them on track with price, especially the big commodity stuff, but with the smaller stuff, they’re willing to work with you to get the right price you need and supply it. Too often we do it in a vacuum, where we think we have all the answers. We go out to just try to solve it ourselves.

I like to put the onus back on those suppliers to help us partner with them. Partnering is a word that kind of went away over the years. But maybe there are alternative materials available; I’ve found that before. We were doing a sugar-free, and R&D had to have this one specific ingredient. Well, we worked with the supplier and there were other alternatives that were oven-stable that we were able to use. Not only were they more plentiful, but they were cheaper in price.

We’ve talked about the Madagascar vanilla that’s only available every two years when the ships are floating and the Suez Canal is not blocked and all those sorts of things, haha. We need to stay away from those very unique ingredients that we have limited access to. But once again, the importance of strategic planning comes in here. If you’re not sure where you’re going, it’s difficult for the suppliers to know how to help you. I know we were working with some off-shore ingredients at one time, and we laid out a plan for the year and that’s what we both held to. They were able to commit to buying that for us and having it imported, and we were also committed to using it. It made a big difference instead of just trying to spot-buy those things on the open market.

Spencer: The suppliers are really struggling right now with their own shortage of materials in the disruption in supply chain. So I know there are bakers that are growing, and the lead times on getting the equipment installed is much longer than anticipated. Is there anything you can think of that bakers can do internally to work with increased demand for their product when they’re already at capacity, while they’re waiting for new lines to come in?

Van Laar: Absolutely. I have rarely found a production line that cannot be improved to some percentage. There’s something somewhere that is holding that line back, and getting the most of the current lines is probably the easiest and most efficient way to get that extra capacity. Knowing where you’re going is crucial, but if it’s just not getting there — and I’ve seen it over and over, where people will say, “We just can’t get there!” — there are some obvious solutions that someone on the outside looking in can see. And they can do some minor modifications sometime to increase the throughput significantly. I’ve seen this happen regularly. So even when people tell you that’s all your equipment will produce, don’t assume that you’re at 100% efficiency with it.

The other thing that we talked about earlier is, if you do need new equipment, used equipment suppliers are a great source for that. You buy the same brand name materials for one or two pieces of equipment for that line, and that may help you get through that bottleneck. I’ve worked with several companies where that’s been the case: There is one piece that’s holding up the whole operation from growth, and that one piece can sometimes be overcome in several different ways. So having someone come in, look at your operation and do an efficiency study or a bottleneck study, really could make a big difference.

Spencer: That’s really good advice. The last question I want to ask you, Dave, is about educating on the art of baking. It’s something I’ve heard a bit of talk about out there in the industry, so I wanted to throw this in as a final question. When we’re looking to the future of education in the baking industry — especially on the art side and not just the science side — what role do you see yourself playing as an educator in the industry moving forward?

Van Laar: We need to get information into the hands of the line workers and incent them to pursue that career in bakery. I’ve seen that so many times by doing a training class in the plant. People get excited about it. If they know what they’re doing and why they’re doing it, it makes a bigger difference to them.

I’m always available to work with any organization and help develop educational programs. I’m also available to do bottleneck studies or efficiency studies, on things I’ve done over the years. And I’ve seen a lot of success through well-done education. It’s more than just technical knowledge; it’s investing in our employees, and that’s never a wasted effort.

Spencer: If anyone in the industry is interested in getting some advice from you one-on-one, say to do an efficiency study, they could just reach out to us at info@avantfoodmedia.com, and we could get them in touch with you.

Van Laar: Sounds good, Joanie.

Spencer: So Dave, those are all our questions from our listeners. I think it’s just a really fantastic way to wrap up this series, Troubleshooting Innovation.

Van Laar: I’ve enjoyed this. It’s always fun to talk about the industry.

Spencer: Absolutely. Again, you are truly an industry icon and an expert. Thank you for sharing all your insight with us and helping the industry think about innovation and product innovation on several different levels. This has been a privilege and a really great learning experience. So thank you very much.

Van Laar: Thank you for the opportunity.

In this episode of the Troubleshooting Innovation podcast, Dave Van Laar shares what bakers need to know about identifying, collecting and analyzing trending information (for the product and the equipment). Hosted by Joanie Spencer, Commercial Baking editor-in-chief.

Sponsored by Reading Bakery Systems.

Joanie Spencer: We started this whole podcast talking about how to navigate those pain points that come with innovation and avoid the heartache that can sometimes accompany innovation. Today, I want to talk about how data collection and analysis can help bakers be better innovators.

Dave Van Laar: Sounds like a great subject, Joanie. Let’s see where it goes.

Spencer: I was thinking we could start with a history lesson and tap into your longevity in the industry. In your experience, when would you say you first saw data become available for bakery operations? And what did the adoption look like from there?

Van Laar: As you said, with my years of experience, my first recollection is when we took a rock and chiseled the instructions on the stone. Then we moved up to… seriously, the first thing I remember is a baker taking off his little baker cap and making notes on his cap. That was data that he needed, and he needed it available to him, so they would take off that hat and write on it. Maybe it was a recording in a manual, something they tracked like an oven log. Information was available for them at a later date. But we’ve always recorded information. We’ve always had data points. But it’s what we do with them that I think is more critical.

Spencer: Absolutely.

Van Laar: Going back to the early years, in 1987-88, I was involved in a project at Pepperidge Farm. The Greenfield plant was a new operation, and there was an automated ingredients handling system that measured precise ingredients into each batch. There were major, minor and micro systems for that. Almost every ingredient was weighed automatically. There should have been no human interface in the whole process. There was a data highway installed in the whole plant; it managed the entire process. Well, operators sat and watched that. But all the information was sent to a central control room. The equipment controls were fed into a central computer system, and everything was tied to the control room. The technicians manned that 24/7 and they monitored everything they could. It was a thing of beauty; however — and there’s always a “however” with new technology — it became overload in a lot of areas. We could not handle all the information. We had “analysis paralysis” at times. We had the data, now what would we do with it? Not all the equipment was feedback-friendly. We could monitor the equipment, but could not always use that information to go back to the machine itself. So if they saw something going out of control, they’d have to pick up the phone and call that operator, tell them to make some adjustments. In addition to that, there were power failures. Just a blip in the system caused resets. Valves malfunctioned. Motors burned out. All those things can happen, so nothing is foolproof. The information was only as useful as our ability to do something meaningful with it. But all-in-all, it was the right direction to go and many meaningful lessons were learned.

As we venture into new territory, there’s often pain associated with it. I remember one of the sessions early on in that project, I sat down with an equipment manufacturer and they were in control of the process, from handling the dough to out of the oven, and we got quite carried away in one session. I thought what we could do on the depositor was to check-weigh each lane across the oven band and each dough ball that came out, and then we could take that information and feed it back to a servo at the depositor and automatically change the weight of each piece as adjustments needed to be made. Of course, that was way out. It was the right thing to do, but we weren’t able to tie everything together.

Spencer: I think it’s still a challenge today, that question of what do you do with the information? I’ve talked to bakers, they’re like, “We have all this data, then we print it out and it’s just numbers on a page and it goes in a drawer.”

Van Laar: Yep, it goes in a drawer in case there’s an audit, in case somebody asks, in case they need it for something else. And I’ve been a longtime proponent of inbound ingredient tracking. We do a lot of work with inbound ingredients. We take measurements, we do statistical analysis, we get information from the [Certificate of Analysis]. We get all this information and we typically put it on a piece of paper or maybe into the computer, and there it is until we get an audit. Then at the audit, we say, “Hey, we’ve got all this!” Well that’s great, and we do need to do that for the audit, but why don’t we do something more with it?

We’ve been tracking lot control for years, inbound materials, outbound shipments. We’re able to track a lot of flour from the mill to the store shelf today. That doesn’t help our process. That’s all just recordkeeping. We do have some proactive things that we use, like the master sanitation schedule, preventive maintenance programs (which I think have come a long way and are a big help in the industry), oven logs are something we’ve always kept, line QA sheets we’ve always kept… But how do we do something meaningful with that data? And that’s exactly what you’re hearing, Joanie, is now what do we do with it.

Spencer: To your point with the audits, data collection is a wonderful tool for FISMA compliance, and like you said, it’s there when it’s needed. But what would you say is the learning curve these days? I’d guess that the curve looks a bit different if you’re an old school baker vs. a younger generation baker, between collecting the data and knowing what to do with it.

Van Laar: The old-timers had that information in their head. They would look at things when they needed it, for instance, if they were having a problem that they thought was a flour problem, they’d go back and look at incoming sheets and check the protein, other statistics on the inbound shipment. They knew where they needed to go to get that information, but they had the experience and the knowledge to know that they needed to go look. Today, we don’t have that with people that are coming into the industry. It’s a learning curve of two things, I believe. It’s a learning curve of the industry to make the information available and usable, but it’s also a learning curve with every new employee. How do they walk into the system and be able to use the information? That’s what we need to understand for this upcoming generation. How do we make the information usable for them?

Spencer: That sparked a thought for me. There’s the veteran bakers who understand the process; they can probably analyze that data really well. Then there are the younger bakers who understand the Internet of things and understand the tools that are available. Perhaps the new ways of data collection and analysis could be the bridge to bring these two groups together.

Van Laar: There’s no question about that, Joanie. We have to somehow build that bakery knowledge into these new systems. I go on back to the Pepperidge Farm days in the early ’80s, I was in a group that was trying to do artificial intelligence by capturing all the information that these master bakers knew. I’ll never forget sitting in a room with these three people while they argued about the best way to fix a problem. These people could all go into a plant and fix the problem, but they’d do it in different ways. They would develop products in different ways. The results would be nearly the same, but their procedures were different.

I mentioned in one of our recent podcast episodes that the operators had their process running in the yellow all the time, perfectly in control. They were measuring product parameters in real time, as real time as they could. Color, moisture, the weight of the product, both at the depositor — the wet weight and the final packaging weight — and the finished product size. This was real. This was not just something for show, because a lot of times, we do things for show. We say, “Look how we’ve got our process in control!” Well, with this lady, I wanted to ask a bit more. I wasn’t certain they were that good at it. She showed me again, real time, the screen of the checkweigher. She said, “I know because here’s the average of the checkweigher, here’s how many lightweights, how many overweights I’m running.” I was really impressed with that. It was not smoke and mirrors; it was meaningful data being used in real time. In talking to her further, when a different crew came on — and I witnessed this — they got more conservative in their adjustments. They were afraid of getting into the yellow so they were well into the green all the time. It was well in spec, but they were giving away a bit more product than they should have, maybe running on a higher side of the color. So it depends on the person taking that technology and doing something with it.

Spencer: That makes sense. I was going to ask about how data can identify how the equipment is performing and how that helps with the product, but that story is such a good anecdotal explanation for how data can directly impact the product.

But let’s talk about the equipment for a minute, because I know you have really good relationships, not only with other bakers but also the suppliers out there. In your experience, and your conversations with the equipment suppliers, how have you seen data help bakers identify how the equipment is performing and how has that led to efficiencies and better product?

Van Laar: I think we need to make that information more visual. We need to make it look like a video game, if we can, and that may sound silly but that’s what the people coming up understand. And not the video game that I learned on, like Pong, we’re talking about video games that are amazingly complex. They require critical thinking skills to compete successfully.

One of my grandsons is regularly playing games with people around the world. There are lots of things going on that I don’t understand in that game, and I probably never will. But can we tie the characteristics of inbound ingredients, for instance, with the final product? How do we make a video game of how to bake properly instead of blowing up the world?

Once the experience of the bakers in the past… How can that be put into those games? The other people learned by experience. We talked about this earlier, of how can we visualize what’s happening in that big, hot box that the product goes into wet and comes out dry? Can we put the perfect baking curve on this screen and have them match it somehow? But also give them some tools to understand what there is, and again, that’s the human side of the learning curve. Maybe they won’t be a master baker but they’ll understand, when they make an adjustment here, that’s how it affects the final product there. I think there’s something to that. In other words, the equipment manufacturers can help us take the mystery of baking — both the art and the science — out of the process and give our operators tools to better manage the process.

Spencer: I think you’re really onto something. In a previous episode, we talked about how veteran bakers had that ability to use their senses, whether it was feeling the dough and sensing something is out of spec or knowing there’s something going on in the machine just because they can hear something is a bit off. Maybe the data that’s available to bakers now, and the propensity that younger bakers have for that gaming mindset, can help them bridge that gap with their ability to sense when something is out of spec or something is going on with the machine, and take advantage of that skillset so they are going further than just turning on the machine and watching it go.

Van Laar: Exactly, Joanie. I think that was our intent back in the ’80s, to somehow capture that information, and the technology was just not there. There was no way to put that down on a screen and have a simple decision “tree” come up. When telemarketers call us — you know, I’ve renewed my car warranty about 16 times last year — they have a tree they go through. When you answer a question one way, they give you one reply. When you answer another way, they give you another reply. That just didn’t work for what we were trying to do, but I believe the major players have certainly made great strides in both collecting and using meaningful data.

One thing I want to caution us all about is not to make it too complicated. We’re always going to need human interface, even that plant that early on in the ’80s, we built so people didn’t have to interface with it. They had to. We need to give our people meaningful data, but just as importantly, we need to educate them on how to use it. As we were talking about, I think we can take some of that ability to analyze the data away from them and put it into a system. But if you go back to the science vs. art discussion, which will always happen, we live in an industry that has inputs with variable characteristics. I go back to Dr. Irfan Hashmi of GrainCorp, “Two loads of flour are never exactly the same. A perfectly standardized flour is impossible from mill to mill, less even from crop year to crop year. The baking characteristics of flour are not definitely indicated by chemical tests.” So we’re not going to be able to get discrete information from testing our ingredients coming in, and they’ll always be variable. However, we can use the data we have to educate our employees and teach them what to do with that information. I think we can do some analysis with it for them, then they can turn around and adjust the system accordingly.

Spencer: When you see the information of how a product is running on the line, have you ever seen any times where it’s like, “We see where we could make those product better.” Like a better crumb, a better taste…

Van Laar: Absolutely. That’s where we have done that out of need more than out of technology in the past. The better bakers will always go back and analyze their inputs to see what may have changed. I talked earlier about that great wall between packaging and processing. Far too many times, I’ve seen a product that’s out of spec go to the packaging area and they’ll adjust the equipment to try to get it in the package, but they continue to run more and more out of spec. That feedback is critical. We need the information highway to do that. That’s what bakers are getting better at: the feedback from one piece of the process to another. That’s the example with the “running in the yellow” people; there were four or five people that were all in touch with what the others were doing.

We talked earlier about the mixer that went on break and kept cheating on his lay time. Everybody else in the process was affected. They all knew that, but management thought they had taken away all the excuses, but they had not. Our people are very intuitive in their processes; they know what they’re doing. I think more and more, we need to bring our people into the process of figuring out what to do with the data. They’re the ones that do it everyday and deal with the information the best they can. They’d like to do it right every time. They would prefer not to have to go back and redo anything. So I think we need to take the input from those people even more seriously than we have in the past.

Spencer: I agree. When we take our view of the process and look at specific equipment that’s lent itself really well to providing data… What types of equipment innovation are bakers overlooking? What’s the low-hanging fruit? Have you seen any tools out there for data collection and analysis that bakers maybe don’t know about yet, or that they’re not taking advantage of?

Van Laar: I think we’ve always been looking for ways to do that, Joanie. Moisture measurement, for example, is something that we’ve tried to do real time at the end of the oven. Some people have been successful with it, others have not. Color measurement at the end of the oven is something we’ve done successfully. But when we do those types of things, they’re not as discrete as what we’d like them to be. There’s a range we kind of calibrate to. If a reading is 2.6, it has to mean something else. It’s a matter of interpreting what we’re getting.

I feel the people are such an important link to that. We tend to overcomplicate. We tend to give information and we think this will really do well, but it turns out to not do much more for us than be reactive to the process. A lot of companies do a great job of helping employees understand what they’re doing afterwards. I’ve toured plants where each department proudly talks about their process. They show graphs and charts to track the process, the metrics are measured, success is measured by the results of those charts. Those are all reactive statements about their process. What I’d like to see is being proactive with that information. How do they realize the process is in control real time? A time when graphs and charts show what we already know? I think a lot of the tools are there, to your question, Joanie. We’re using them already. But how do we apply that information back into the system?

Go back to that big, hot box that the product goes into wet and comes out like a pretty piece of product. How do we understand more of what’s going on in there? We know we can send a device through the oven to understand air movement, moisture, temperature across the band and through the oven. Can we do that real time somehow? Can we take that information and show the interaction between the product and the piece of equipment moving it down the line? I think there are attempts to do that. There are lots of measuring devices out there and they all have their good attributes, but they have to be used correctly. I think that’s the biggest issue that we find.

Spencer: That’s a really good point, to look at it proactively and in real time, not so reactively. It makes me think about the team you talked about running in the yellow, and when they bring a new person onto the team then they have to play it safe and go back into the green. What are ways that teams can get those new bakers coming into the operation up-to-speed quicker so they can get back into the yellow and run those process controls as tightly as possible?

Van Laar: It comes back to education. That’s what we’re always going to have to do. If you look at that process, it’s the exact same information available to both the new person and an experienced person. It’s the exact same information available on the screen when they change operators. The difference in that? The operators and their experience. We know information can be obtained — I mean, all the information they were getting was real time and it was usable information — but we haven’t yet found a way to take that information back and adjust the system. We have not found a way to take weight of every dough ball coming off the rounder and go back to make weight adjustments on the equipment doing that. And is it necessary? Can we go too far with things, make it too complicated? I think good, solid knowledge of the very basic parameters is where we need to start, and it needs to be real time. We never get away from the fact that we have to educate our employees what to do with that. That’s where the technology can come in. Perhaps the video game concept can do that for us. It can list and say, “If this happens, that happens.”

In our education courses, we’ll show a product that is dark in color, burned, and we asked the employees to guess what made that happen. Guesses are all over the place: not enough water, too much flour, too much sugar, too much heat in the last zone. All those things could have caused that, so we ask them to taste the burned product, where you can see the crystallized sugar in it. You know something happened there, probably causing the sugar to crystallize more and it gives you a clue as to the steps to repairing it. A lot of things can look the same, but the cause is definitely variable.

Spencer: Right. The data can help bakers make more educated guesses, right?

Van Laar: Absolutely, and there’s no question about that. I marvel, at times, when bakers have flour crop changes and they don’t tell production. They just let them live through it. It’s an extreme example, but it happens. I don’t understand why, but it still happens. That’s one thing we need to do: Take the data we have and make it usable to our employees.

Spencer: And understand why it’s important.

Van Laar: They need to know that! I’ve never seen people’s eyes light up so much as when they understand what’s behind what they’re doing. It’s amazing. We talk about labor shortages… We don’t give these people enough credit sometimes, in our bakeries, to give them enough information to trust them with it. I think we need to do more of that. We need to give them the information and watch them get the job satisfaction that comes from that.

Spencer: I totally agree. As you were talking about bakers making a guess and thinking about all the potential possibilities as to why, I thought to myself: That’s got to be really satisfying, to have the opportunity to unpack why. I’m sure it leads to job satisfaction on the plant floor, but I think that job satisfaction is something that’s been a challenge lately.

Van Laar: I go back to the training session of explaining elasticity, and the lady going and making a pizza for her family that night and explaining that’s what she does at work. They all kind of stretched the dough, played with it together at home. We could find a way to measure that elasticity. I don’t know that we do anywhere, but we could find a way to measure it. But then if you did, what would you do with it? We’ve got to get past the point of, “This is bad, don’t run it.” We need to get to the point of, “This is not right, what caused it?” With all the variables and the inputs, that’s going to be fairly complex, but we need to have that ability to get back to the gold standard of where we started. That’s too often where we go. We make an adjustment, that becomes the new standard. We make another adjustment, that becomes the new standard. A lot of companies do a great job of making sure we get back to the base formula, but there’s always going to be a tendency to make those adjustments with the dough. And we have to. If you look anywhere in contract manufacturing, we had real tight specs on equipment, but they still understood that bakers would have to make adjustments at times. We had a +/- 2% on water, for instance. We had a +/- 1% on flour. So those are things they knew we’d have to work on to keep the product in spec.

Spencer: What do you think the future looks like when it comes to this ability to collect and analyze data? We think back to the ’80s when the baker took off his hat and jotted notes down on it, and now we look at what we can do now. Where do you think we’re going? Like, when we can fly our cars to work?

Van Laar: Haha it’s so dependent on our workforce, isn’t it? It’s so dependent on the people who want to do something. In the ’80s, we thought we could replace a lot of thinking with technology and that just doesn’t happen. I don’t think it’s ever going to happen. The art of baking is always going to be there, but we need to understand the science more. I think that’s where technology can come into play, to help us understand the science of what’s occurring at the time.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could look at that burnt cookie, put it into a machine, and it would tell you that you put in 2% too much sugar? That would take the guesswork out for the employee. We go in and if they leave out the soda, we can taste it, check the pH, there are some things we can do in that way. Can we do that with other things? Can we do that with the flour, shortening? I think the way to go is to take more discrete measurements on the inbound variables, then turn that into meaningful information for the employee.

Spencer: You’ve used a word several times in this episode, and that word is “meaningful.” I think that’s the key. The information has to be meaningful, the analysis has to be meaningful, and we have to make the process meaningful for the operator. Right?

Van Laar: Absolutely. That’s where the touch and feel of the dough that the old-timers had, that was intuitive to them, how can we measure that in a way that interprets it to the new employee? That’s going to be critical. Can we put that dough on a little machine that says, “All the parameters are good here,” or “The flour is a little high in protein; you’d better do this to the oven.”

There are two steps. The first is knowing the information, and the second is to know what to do with that information. If we knew, for instance, something changed on the inbound ingredients, the other side of that is, we need to know what to do about it. That’s where I believe the equipment manufacturers can come closer to the bakers in determining that. I’ve been in labs with equipment manufacturers and they are really looking to the bakers to help incorporate that information into their new technology. Everyone is trying to do that. We’re looking for great breakthroughs in that whole thing. If you go to a trade show, you’ll find many people with instrumentations that will tell you they can help your process. A lot of that is cutting-edge, a lot of it is trial, but it’s coming together. There will be a way someday to put that piece of dough in a device and it’ll tell us more about it than we know today.

Spencer: When you think about how far we’ve come with technology in such a short amount of time, it’s really exciting to think what’s on the horizon.

Well, Dave, those are all my questions for this episode. And thinking about what’s on the horizon, I’m really excited for next week because that’s when you have the opportunity to answer listener questions. We’re going to put next week into the hands of our listeners and see what is important to them and meaningful to them and tap into your expertise. I’m really looking forward to that.

Van Laar: I’d love to hear from experienced people also. Lessons they’ve learned in helping the new generation understand the process. If there’s anything they have to add, that would be extremely beneficial so that our listeners could take and put it to use on the line. Submit not only your questions but also solutions. If people have found some of the ways to do these things, I’d love to hear it and we can share it with the listeners.

Spencer: Absolutely. If anyone has a question for Dave, or a comment or suggestion, just email info@avantfoodmedia.com. Dave, I will talk to you next week.

In this episode of the Troubleshooting Innovation podcast, Dave Van Laar, industry expert and consultant, talks about achieving what you can’t see, including troubleshooting the baking curve and managing variables beyond the oven. Hosted by Joanie Spencer, Commercial Baking editor-in-chief.

Sponsored by Reading Bakery Systems.

Joanie Spencer: This podcast is all about troubleshooting when it comes to product innovation, so today, let’s talk about how the oven can impact production of a new baked good.

Dave Van Laar: The oven is the most critical step in the process and one that really distinguishes us from other industries. A lot of things are mixed, a lot of things are dried, but we’re pretty unique in that we run things through an oven. No. 1, the first thing we need to do is know our equipment. You need to know your oven. I believe that’s one of the most important aspects that’s often neglected, and I know in my career, it was something we just didn’t know how to do. We made assumptions about what was going on in the box, but we didn’t have any devices to measure or understand what was going on inside the box. Today, there are measuring systems and tools that have become much more sophisticated. We can measure the temperature across the band and down the oven, we can measure air movement, moisture and many other things today. We really can understand what’s going on inside the oven. No. 1 would be to understand that. Make sure the oven is doing what you expect it to do. That there are no cold spots, no hot spots, no places where there’s no air circulation. Then thinking about this, the more I thought about it, this is where science really comes into play during product development. This is where it really needs to be science, because the chemistry involved is pretty complex. The R&D person needs to know the desired results so they can formulate accordingly. It’s not just a matter of throwing a bunch of things together and making a good product. It’s something they have to anticipate: the chemical reactions in the oven. And some of those reactions are really significant: CO2 releasing, the yeast starts swelling, the development of the amylase activity, gluten coagulation, the water to steam, the rise in the cookie or cracker or bread, sugar carbonizes at certain levels, and the Maillard reactions happen. There are lots of things the product development person needs to anticipate as they add ingredients, and every one of those reactions are caused by an ingredient that’s up into the dough that has a reaction at a certain time and temperature.

Spencer: We’ve talked several times throughout this podcast about the need for R&D and operations and equipment and ingredient suppliers to get involved in that product development super early. It sounds like the R&D and the ingredient folks really need to be considering the oven early on. Would you say that’s true?

Van Laar: No doubt about it. I did education in a plant, they were doing a new cracker item, and they had a lot of new, unique ingredients in the item. They had to be handled in a certain way and baked in a certain way. The plant was having a hard time getting used to that, because it was so much different than their traditional baking. It was a new mindset and experience for them, where R&D had left production to finish and production was still struggling with it.

Spencer: Let’s talk about the finished product. It comes out of the oven and it’s out of spec. First assumption is to blame the oven, right?

Van Laar: Actually, Joanie, the first assumption is to blame the flour. That’s always been the standard. We love to blame something and flour is that big variable, it’s a big ingredient. But you’re exactly right — we start to blame what we can’t see, and that’s just natural for people to do. We blame things that are out of our control. The first assumption most people make is, “It’s not something I did.” Here we go again: Know your oven. The oven panel we had at the technical convention was one of my favorite sessions and also one that was well-attended. We had experts talking about how ovens worked in quite a bit of detail. These sessions were aimed at the operator, understanding what goes into product development and to make sure all the equipment is working properly. We’d been through direct fire gas ovens, and we found half the burners were not working properly, and we were wondering why it wasn’t baking according to our anticipation. What has changed in the oven? Has anything been modified? I was interested, one time, one of the panelists asked if we made repairs and painted inside: “Did they use gray, silver or black paint?” And I thought, “How trivial is that?” But it’s significant, and you don’t think of those things. The maintenance man that made those changes, he’s grabbing the color that’s in the can closest to him. It’s not something we think that much about, and nobody goes in to look at that. We went through a project where we had the fire box, the indirect fire really needed to be rebuilt, the bricks were falling apart, so we went in and rebuilt the burner box. New exhausts, new everything, new gas coming in. And the first batch of cookies we put through the oven were burned to a crisp. What happened? Well we did it again and they still came burned, so we started doing some testing and we found the temperature probes were put in a different place when they replaced the oven bricks. So we were actually reading a different temperature than we were before. Nothing had really changed; we changed our settings because we were getting a reading that was different. Now that’s an extreme case, but things like that can happen. We just had to readjust that and get it back where we knew we should be.

Spencer: What do you think is harder to troubleshoot: a product that you’ve been making day after day, year after year, then it comes out of the oven out of spec, or a new product that hasn’t been in production for very long, and it comes out not as you anticipated it when you were developing the product?

Van Laar: To me, that’s where R&D is not done until it’s been perfected, if you will, in the plant. That’s where, if these chemical reactions are not happening as they anticipated, it’s really outside the scope of an oven operator to fix that. It’s something they have to measure. We take quality measurements, obviously, and there’s no such thing as a good or bad product. We measure taste, texture and appearance. Marketing has a concept in mind and they want it to taste like something or look like something, and we need to copy that. Within that, there are certain parameters we need to meet with moisture, pH, water activity and things like that. But we need to match what marketing had in mind, and if the product isn’t doing that, I think that’s more of an issue of R&D tweaking in the plant than it is a problem of the plant.

In any of these events, one word continues to come back to me: Consistency. As we talked about in episode three, consistency in mixing is crucial. We have new ingredients, most times, in new products. Are they being handled properly? Are all the mixing instructions being followed exactly? Is the temperature correct on all the ingredients? So we do need to troubleshoot, just like anything else, but if it involves that chemistry in the oven, it’s more than just an operator issue.

Spencer: I was sitting in that oven panel you referenced, and I’ve seen a couple oven panels at the technical conference, and it’s one of my favorites because I’m always learning. I think we should see more non-operators sitting in those panels to hear and participate in those conversations.

Van Laar: Not everyone understands what their part brings to the whole. Again, the maintenance person that paints that section of the oven inside may not understand what’s going on in the oven. Or other people make adjustments or changes and they don’t understand what’s going on, so it’s really important to understand the process by all the disciplines involved.

Spencer: Let’s talk for a minute about the baking curve. I’m a journalist, not a baker, but…

Van Laar: Joanie, you keep going and we’ll get you on the line for good!

Spencer: Haha I’ve got to keep going to these sessions and having these conversations so I can keep learning. I’m always so fascinated by the baking curve. I want to just ask you a couple questions about that. What are the variables that a baker needs to consider when it comes to the baking curve, and what are the attributes that are going to either impact the baking curve or be impacted by it?

Van Laar: Not to drop an advertisement, but the American Bakers Association has courses that are available and written so the people in the plants can understand exactly that. The metrics we look at in the oven are the heat flux (the relationship between the convective and radiant heat), temperature, humidity, air velocity — and there are controls to control all those. So as the heat is directed in the oven, we do go through that baking curve, as you so well know. That curve is made up of three stages. First, we set the product; we get the shape we need and the moisture starts to get released from the product. Phase two is where we really bake it, take out the moisture and set the final shape, size of the product. The third stage of the baking curve is to get the color. When we talk about ovens, we have to talk about the different types of ovens, too. The most common are the direct fire gas and the recirculation indirect. So those baking curves are significantly different. Air flow in the direct fire gas is much less than in the indirect, and the temperature curve of the zones is more gradual than it is in an indirect. When we think about certain things like yeast, we don’t want to kill the yeast before it does its activity, but when it’s done, we do want to kill it. That’s crucial in that heat developing inside the product of how that comes forward. The other things happening, obviously if we have the last zone too hot, and we crystallize the sugar, we’re going to get some dark product. All those things need to be considered as the heat is coming up in the product. The other thing we do is we have to cool it when we’re done. We don’t want excess heat in it, we need to have enough heat to get the baking process completed and then cool it down to get it packaged.

Spencer: Do you think that’s something bakers could overlook: the cooling time and how it relates to the baking time?

Van Laar: We need to have significant run out of the oven so we can get the product off the band. But after that, it’s got to be ambient temperature to package it or there are problems we’re going to find otherwise. A lot of folks do that with spiral cooling, some do it with ambient, some go overhead, some bring it back and forth. There are many ways to do it to save on real estate. It’s something we are considering more and more, as something we don’t like to have to do, but it has to be done.

Spencer: Right. I’ve been in a couple bakeries that really took advantage of hybrid ovens, and some of them were doing that to “future-proof,” because it provided more options for their product in the future. Have you seen that trending?

Van Laar: Hybrid ovens have been discussed for a long time. I go way back and we were looking at ways to do things, like getting color on product and getting highlights; direct fire gas works really well for that. There are other things that work better for an indirect. But the hybrids are something I think are making great inroads recently in the industry. Another thing that’s really coming to its own is getting the moisture out of product using radio frequency, like a big radar range within the oven. That really saves on space. It was tried back in the ’80s and it worked somewhat successfully. I don’t think it was as understood as it is today, but now there’s no question that there’s an application for that. I’ve seen rapid changeover in ovens being developed too, so pans can almost be changed instantaneously and the product will continue to run through the oven even though there’s a changeover. That’s so important in the bread industry where we’re running a full range of products every day; changeover becomes a huge issue. Yes, it’s really important that we continue to embrace technology, and I think that’s where the product development people have strong input with the equipment manufacturers, and interactions happen at trade shows and in labs. They’ve always been very receptive to new ideas, and therefore they can perfect the equipment. And it takes involvement from both sides.

Spencer: It’s pretty amazing how, now more than ever, there are conversations being had between the R&D specialists in a bakery and an equipment manufacturer. There aren’t these fiefdoms anymore. Everyone is starting to understand how each area of product development impacts another area or the next stage of development.

Van Laar: And I think that’s out of necessity, Joanie, with the bakers of the past who had their own peculiarities and ways of doing things. Pick a sandwich cookie, for instance. Ideally, we’d make that on a direct fire, mesh oven. Many people make that cookie on an indirect, solid band oven. They use docker pins to take care of the steam pockets, but if the product development person has a specific piece of equipment in mind that they’re developing around, he or she is probably going to develop it a bit differently than if they had a green board on which to write. Over time, we’ve seen a lot of that through the processing and depositing from multiple layers and multiple ingredients into the cookie. But in the oven, I think what’s happened recently is the equipment manufacturers have developed their own labs. These labs are extensive today; there are small bakeries in these manufacturers. We see our development people going in there and working at length. When they do that, obviously the equipment engineers get to see what they’re doing, and they can have lively discussions on what they’re trying to accomplish. I think some of those barriers that equipment held before are being broken and it will take some time to get some new equipment out there, but it’s coming.

Spencer: The next thing I want to talk about is the stories that I’ve heard, and I know you and I have talked about this several times in the past. We touched on it with mixer operators, in a previous episode, but I hear these stories about the oven settings being changed from shift to shift because one operator thinks he or she knows better than the shift before. The mere mention of that can just make a director of operations cringe. So how does a bakery get all the shifts on board to maintain consistency through the oven settings?

Van Laar: Very simple, Joanie. We take all the knobs off the oven. I would love to do that sometime, just put fake knobs so they can turn all they want and it doesn’t affect anything. But that happens everywhere; it happens in packaging, equipment, everywhere in the plant. In the oven, it’s more dangerous because as you mentioned several times, you cannot see that. Technology has really helped us in that arena. The software that’s driving the ovens today has levels of security on it so the operator interface can make certain changes within certain limits, so they may be able to change temperature up and down five percent, they may be able to change some air movement, but they can’t make huge changes. The fact that the gold standard is still there … they come back to that.

One problem we had before when we were on paper, is the gold standard changed all the time. If I’m running an oven and I make changes, they’re allowable changes to get the product back into spec or get my desired results, where do I start the next time? They typically start where they ended the last time. So that becomes “the new gold standard.” Then if we make changes again from there, typically they’ll go back to the original formula, the previous one, and make another change from that. So we can get way out of control. That’s where quality control comes in because they need to keep going back to that gold standard when they’re on paper and make sure they’re always using that as the go-to formula.

But today, with the computers and software that’s available, I’ve seen some great things. I was in a plant doing some education, walked the line the day before the education was going on. I looked at the controls and the lady had everything in the yellow. Obviously, with the green, yellow and red, you’d anticipate that green is best, yellow is in trouble and red is out of spec. I said, “You’re about to lose control.” She said, “We are perfect.” I asked what she meant. She said, “We are perfectly in control. Everything is running right at the perfect edge of spec.” I talked to her further, and she mentioned that the packaging operator, supervisor, mixers and oven and depositor operators were a team that had worked together for a long time and they knew exactly how to tweak the product so it was right at the edge of spec. It was still well in spec, but instead of going out of spec, they were keeping it there and making the most efficient product they could. The weight was good, everything else was good, but instead of running really conservatively in the green and wasting product or fuel, they were running right where they needed to be. It takes a team to do that. That one person could not do that by herself, but the whole team got together and I asked her what happened if somebody new came into the process. She said, “Then we’ve got to adjust. We’ve got to go back into the green a ways and allow for some variations.”

Spencer: Wow, that’s really interesting. I love hearing the stories of the bakers working together and understanding how they need to adjust, should someone new come into the process.

Van Laar: One thing that always surprised me is finding problems in the plant and people making adjustments. Say you have a product that’s getting a little too big in packaging. The packaging people start to adjust the equipment to make up for that larger product; they don’t always check the spec first, they just start to make minor adjustments. When the operator makes adjustments until the machine won’t take any more adjustment, they say, “We’ve got a problem here.” It shouldn’t happen that way. We should go back to root cause analysis and say, “The packaging machine did not make the product too big. It happened somewhere back in the line.” But there seems to be this huge wall sometimes between the packaging room and the mixing room. The oven is obviously the piece between that, but we don’t have enough people going back and forth between the packaging and mixing areas to understand what’s going on in the whole process.

That’s always surprised me because you can’t fix something once it’s gone past your stage of the process. One education piece we went into, the director said, “Tell the people it’s OK to dump a bad dough.” I thought that was obvious, but then I thought maybe it’s not so obvious. They want to save the numbers, so what they do is run a bad dough down the line, change the oven to try to make up for it, put it into packaging, it doesn’t meet spec, so instead of throwing away a dough, they throw away a dough’s worth of finished product in the package. That’s obviously a lot more expensive than throwing away the dough in the beginning.

Spencer: Hindsight is 20/20. When you look back on that, you see all the energy you wasted producing it into a finished product. But I also can see — and I hear this a lot — that there’s this fear of getting in trouble or being blamed for something. The natural inclination for a line worker can often be, “Let’s just try to make it work instead of calling attention to it and having to throw it out.”

Van Laar: That happens too often.

Spencer: As far as training and communication, what are the steps that bakeries can take to overcome that school of thought?

Van Laar: Working together is obviously something that must be encouraged and developed. Those teams need to have confidence in each step of the process, and they should understand more than just their area. Going back to the education piece, that’s one thing I’ve seen come out of the sessions that’s been so successful. For instance, when the person was cheating on the lay time on the dough, everybody on the line knew it was affecting them but they were helpless to do anything about it. They came back and asked about certain things they might be able to do. Later, I heard they did propose some things to management to help fix that. That team effort is required and not often enough is it fostered.

Spencer: Let’s take it back to product development. As we’re talking, it’s so obvious that every stage of the process is part of new product development. But in this particular episode, we’re focusing on the oven. It’s sort of the heartbeat or the centrifuge of the line, wouldn’t you say?

Van Laar: The product development people are, as we said earlier, developing a product that’s sat in the oven and takes the reactions from the chemistry that’s happening in the oven to get the product that’s desired. The typical process is that marketing and management want to go a certain direction, say it’s gluten-free, and they go to R&D to say, “We need you to develop this product and here are the parameters we want to see. We want it to be soft, chewy, whatever. Dark, highlighted.” Then the product development person has to go back and put ingredients into that, which react to the oven the way they need it to react to get the product. As I said earlier, the oven is a unique step in the process for us in the baking industry, and it separates us from so many other industries. We’re not just mixing. We’re mixing to get a desired effect in the oven. We get that desired effect in the oven by using the baking curve to cause those chemical reactions. We activate the yeast, then we kill the yeast; we have starch swelling; we turn water to steam to get pockets in the product. All those things are happening as the person is developing that product. Do we put soda in it or do we not? Some of those are very minor ingredients in the scope of things and we have a very specific need in the oven.

Developers also have to know what equipment is available. What are they working with? Do they have only indirect fire solid bands to work with? Do they have only rack ovens to work with? They need to consider that as they develop the process. I think equipment suppliers have done a great job, specifically more of late, to develop equipment that meets the needs that our R&D people have. We’ve seen these trends, and as I said earlier, that’s happening in the labs of the equipment manufacturers. They get to see the product development people work on a product, hear them talk about what they really need, and the engineers can get firsthand input into what we’re trying to achieve. It’s all about achieving the product that is desired by marketing and management. A lot of R&D people — and this is important too — will invent products and work on things, but if nobody buys into it, if marketing doesn’t want to produce it, if sales won’t sell it, it really doesn’t go anywhere. It could be a fantastic product, but it’s a combination of that happening plus what they know they can do in the oven.

Spencer: You answered my next question basically, but I’m going to ask it anyway. You’ve been in these conversations that I, of course, will never be privy to, but what does it look like when a team is considering a new product and how do you decide what comes first? Is it: We want to invest in our equipment, we’re going to take the next step in new technology for an oven, and what kind of products can we make with that new oven technology? Or is it: We want to develop these new products, what type of oven technology do we need? How do you decide when your equipment, specifically your oven, is sufficient for new product development? How do you know when it’s time to invest?

Van Laar: Obviously the direction of the company is paramount. Then keeping up with these trends and understanding what new equipment can do is an input to that. So in a marketing or R&D meeting, they may talk about the things they’d like to do but aren’t able to do because of equipment limitations. That’s one way that starts. The other way is replacing old equipment. One comment was made one time about having a session about the technical conference about new technology: “Why would we do that? We don’t have any new technology in our plants. Help us run this old stuff we’ve got.” So we’re going to be replacing a lot of things in the industry. I know the oven manufacturers are all busy. They’re replacing things that are old, coming out of commission. I was involved in a couple projects where we knew we had to replace an oven, but the question became: What direction were we going to do? What did we need to consider in replacing that oven? That comes from a concerted effort among all disciplines, to understand what the objective is of the company.

Spencer: It’s such a complex, staged scenario.

Van Laar: But it’s fun, Joanie! Baking is fun.

Spencer: Baking is fun, that’s for sure. Dave, these are all my questions talking about the oven. I love hearing your insight; I always learn so much from you and I love getting a refresher course on the baking curve, especially when it comes to new product innovation. As we’ve established, the oven is the mainstay of a baked product. But there are still so many new things going on and new things to learn.

Next week, we’re going to talk about data collection. That’s something relatively new in our industry, so we’ll talk about all the ways bakers can identify, collect and analyze trending information, not only for the product but also for the equipment.

And just a reminder that in our final episode, Dave will be answering audience questions. Any listener that has a question for Dave can send us an email at info@avantfoodmedia.com. Dave, I look forward to talking to you next week.