WESTERN HORIZONS. "We're the second largest bakery in the Archway system," said Boone plant manager Terry Goodman. "we're doing 100,000 packages a day and still rising." The Boone plant bakes the full line of Archway products for its large market region, stretching from the Mississippi river to the West coast, excluding the Northwest.
"The West, California and Nevada especially, is a growth area for us," Mr. Goodman said. "Archway's entrance to those markets is relatively recent. And we see that additional demand in our output here."
"With demand increasing, we had to expand cooling capacity," he said. "Because we bake and distribute fresh, we had to find a way to get more products through the oven and cooled before packaging in the same amount of plant space."
The Boone plant was originally housed in a downtown site. It moved into its current 80,000-sq-ft building in 1966. While the building sits on a good-sized site, the company was reluctant to expand, opting instead to update its post-oven material handling system.
Both changes in cooling technologies took about a year, from planning to start up. Archway sets the annual and longrange capital plans for each bakery through an annual budget planning process meeting that starts in the fall and is completed by the start of the new year. Mr. Goodman said that installation of new capital equipment generally takes place during the post-holiday winter break, a shutdown period which the bakery normally uses for maintenance upgrades.
Raw materials and paper goods are stored separately, brought into production and packaging rooms according to scheduled need. Doughs are prepared in batches on two Peerless horizontal mixers, equipped with double-arm mixing elements. Finished doughs move by trough from the mixer station to each of the two APV Baker (Werner Lehara) indirectly fired tunnel ovens.
A variety of depositing stations allow Archway to produce wire-cut, rotary moulded, bar, deposited and flip-style cookies on the same high-production line. The choice of indirect fire heating meets Archway's needs to keep moisture in the cookie, rather than drive it out.
Cookies travel a long run-out oven belt before they transfer to the cooling line infeed. Icing fountains and granulated sugar depositors are linked into the line to top cookies, as required. Small nuggetstyle cookies are tumbled in powdered sugar toppings after they cool, but most other Archway styles are topped or iced while still oven-hot.
"The main problem we had was space," Mr. Goodman said. "You'll notice that we're very good at using space in this plant, but we had a problem fitting in additional cooling capacity." The compact design of the I.J. White Spiral saved valuable floor space.
"Cooling is a critical function for us," he continued. "The change also benefited the product. With only two transfer points, they are very easy on the product. The spiral systems operate at good velocity and give us the proper amount of cooling."
I.J. White matched the 48-in.-wide spiral belt to the existing oven band width. The smooth operation maintains cookie orientation up to 8-across throughout the system for improved throughput. This benefit extends to registered, shingled and randomly oriented cookie lines. The spirals feature modular design and a central cleaning station for optimal sanitation and reduced cleaning costs.
With the second spiral, Archway made an 16-ft addition to the bakery. The company also created a raised pad for the two spirals. Thus, the conveyors that carry hot cookies maintain the same elevation their entire way from the oven exit through the icing stations to the first tier of the spiral coolers. By eliminating the incline, Archway helps keep its characteristic thin icings evenly distributed on cookie tops.
The five operators hand-packing cookie cartons are supported by Kliklok automated carton erectors, Ishida checkweighers and Fuji Formost horizontal form/fill/seal wrappers. A metal detector inspects each finished package before it is allowed to reach the case-packing station. Filled cases are automatically taped shut and sent to palletizing.
This plant also produces bulk-packed styles, such as gingersnaps and other popular styles. These pass through the Triangle vertical form/fill/seal bagger, capable of producing 1 -lb and 2 -lb bags.
Cookies are packed into cartons carrying bar-code identification. Scanners, located along conveyor lines and at various locations in the distribution staging room, verify product codes.
"This is to be sure we're shipping the exact product to the distributors," Mr. Goodman said. "We've been using the bar code program for about four years."
Cases reach the Famic robotic palletizer, where the bar code cues the arm-like system to stack cases according to a specific pattern. Case after case is automatically picked off the conveyor and placed in an exactly constructed stack. "This operation was previously done by hand," Mr. Goodman explained. "Our Ohio facility's robotic palletizer picks four cases at once, but Boone's volume is lower so we use a single-case system."
Orders are picked according to computer-generated lists. The list, the scanned data and the manual product count must match before the load is released for distribution.
Archway developed independent distribution as a way of doing business early in the company's history. It's a method that works well for fresh delivery of products.
"Our distribution style hasn't altered," Mr. Goodman said. Archway's fleet of tractor-trailers delivers products to the company's network of independent distributors.
"If you grew up with Archway, you know our product values," Mr. Goodman said. "Now we're working to bring those products and values to even more consumers."
"We bake to order," Mr. Goodman said. "It's just 72 hours from the time we receive the order to when it's shipped. That's our goal. And time is very important to us. Our products have short shelf lives, six weeks at the most, while our competitors can count on up to six months of shelf life."
The bakery operates with a staff of 150 people, running three shifts, Monday through Friday. Weekly production starts up late Sunday evening, and each day, by noon, the plant starts loading out and finished goods for distribution.
For the most part, product demand is steady throughout the year, until "cookie season" hits.
