Sensor Technology Empowers Food Manufacturer

OMEP worked with Food For The Sole on applying principles of lean to address their capacity and productivity issues. The Food For The Sole team embraced the process and the improvements stacked up quickly in production. OMEP also observed the inventory management and order fulfillment processes and recommended a pull system based on a Kanban system.

Food For The Sole quickly realized the benefits. Prior to implementing the Kanban system, the team was sectioning inventory off by distribution channel and would often end up with one channel out of inventory and other channels with excess. Now the company has more space and the inventory is more manageable, making the process much easier and reliable.

Consistent dehydration is critical for Food For The Sole’s product. Dehydrator batches often had problems, often due to dehydrators overheating at night, wasting ingredients and labor. Food For The Sole sought a way to easily monitor the dehydrators and make changes before losses occurred. OMEP identified an advanced technology opportunity using Internet of Things, setting up real-time monitoring using thermocouple sensors in the dehydrators. The sensors send data through a Wi-Fi gateway to a cloud database once per minute. Visual dashboards and event triggers report dehydrator performance, making reports available even from offsite. Alarms trigger when temperatures are out of range, allowing leadership to address issues immediately. Sensors also provide actionable data to continuously improve production and a morale boost for staff. The kitchen team puts energy and love into creating food and no longer suffers the lost efforts due to dehydrator issues.