This problem becomes even more apparent in the realm of maintenance. The maintenance team serves a crucial role in keeping the plant up and running, and managers can’t afford to leave their plants in poorly-trained hands.

Here are three common mistakes to avoid while training maintenance employees:

Rushing

Be thorough in your training. Maintenance keeps your business running smoothly, so make sure your maintenance team is prepared for any breakdown, spill, leak, or hazard. Anything can happen, so make sure your team can handle any situation well.

It is important to teach each maintenance employee not only what each machine does, but also its role in the grand scheme of things. That way, if several malfunctions occur at once, your maintenance team will better-equipped to prioritize their task list efficiently.

Do not let your employees feel like they are being left in the dark. Competent employees are often the most motivated, and providing your maintenance team with a comprehensive education about their role will build their confidence in their own abilities.

Neglecting to Record Results

Recording results allows you to see the efficiency of your current training program. By testing and analyzing the results of each training session, you’ll be able to see what works and what doesn’t, allowing you to gradually develop and improve your training program to best suit your team.

First, strict recordkeeping will allow you to measure the efficiency of your training program. By recording the results, you’ll be able to get a bird’s eye view of what went well in training and what needs to be improved. Make sure to set specific, quantifiable benchmarks to effectively measure results.

Second, recording everything allows you to better track the progress of individual employees. In addition to the team as a whole, keep uniform benchmarks that every maintenance employee should be able to meet. These will help you identify which employees need more training, and in what areas.

Lastly, recordkeeping will allow you to oversee the entire maintenance department and identify what is not getting done. For example, by looking through records, you could find that a certain area is always dirty because the maintenance employees were not informed that it needed to be cleaned.

During training, be sure to teach proper recording procedures to each team member, and stress the importance of accurate records.

Making Training a “One and Done” Deal

No matter how great the teacher, a student won’t be able to learn effectively if the information is presented only once. As you teach and train your maintenance team, remember that training is an ongoing process, evolving and changing over time but never stopping.

Maintenance employees should have periodic refresher courses on proper safety practices. This will keep team members keep workers from developing any bad habits and stop them from becoming complacent from doing their procedures so frequently.

In addition, the entire team should be extensively trained any time new equipment is introduced. Leaving an employee to figure out how a machine works without proper guidance is asking for trouble.

Don’t just repeat the same information, though. Change up the topic or present it in a different way. This will help keep employees focused and stop them from tuning out to a lesson they feel like they’ve heard several times before.

Likewise, use past sessions to fine-tune your training regimen. If you are tracking and recording results from each training, you will soon start to see gaps where important information isn’t getting across; those gaps can then be used as the basis for the next training session.

When it comes to training, never assume that your maintenance employees will fill in their knowledge gaps after a single training session. Everyone has different learning styles, and may require different strategies to learn effectively. 

For more information to help you make the most of your plant’s maintenance efforts, download our free informative Ebook, Why and How to Cross-Train in Maintenance.

The post 3 Mistakes to Avoid When Training Maintenance Employees appeared first on DeLong’s Gizzards & Poultry Processing Equipment.

As a manager of a poultry production plant, it is vitally important to take extensive measures that ensure cleanliness of the facility. Here are some steps you should take in order to avoid contamination mishaps:

1) Train Adequately

Employers have an obligation to properly train their employees on all necessary sanitation practices. The public puts trust in the food industry to prepare food in a safe and clean environment, and the best way to live up to those standards is by ensuring every member of the team is following all proper procedures to the letter.

Be thorough in training. Ignorance is no excuse, and no employee should ever be able to blame a contamination mishap on poor training. Constantly bring up sanitary practices during training so that employees never have a question as to where they fit into their daily tasks and the process as a whole.

2) Explicitly Assign Cleaning Tasks

Failure to explicitly assign cleaning tasks can lead to tasks being ignored. All too often, if a task isn’t clearly assigned, people will simply tell themselves that someone else will do it, and the task never ends up getting done.

Cleaning is not anyone’s favorite task, but it is not an option. Whether you have a designated cleaning crew or have all employees participate in cleaning practices as they work, include the following in each assignment:

• Who is responsible
• What equipment to use
• Proper procedure
• How often the task is to be done

3) Don’t Cut Corners

It can be tempting to ignore minor messes that don’t seem like a big deal, but this sort of careless behavior can quickly turn into a habit. Before long, small messes build up into huge problems that take much more time and money to deal with properly.

As the saying goes, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Bacteria can grow quickly, so it is important to be proactive: when you see a mess or identify something dirty, no matter how small, clean the area thoroughly.

4) Stress Personal Hygiene

Any training regimen should include an explanation of employee personal hygiene expectations, but those expectations should be addressed continually. The importance of maintaining good personal hygiene cannot be stressed enough to your employees.

As with cleaning practices, improper procedures that are allowed to become bad habits are certain to result in costly mistakes at some point in the future, so create good habits in your workers instead. Remind employees that personal hygiene begins at home, and only continues while in the workplace.

Outline proper handwashing techniques as well as expectations on attire, jewelry, nails, hair, and eyewear. Employees with contagious diseases or those showing symptoms of a food-borne illness should not be allowed to work until they are healthy enough to guarantee that they will not spread any diseases.

5) Clean Areas Other Than Food Processing Equipment

Even with clean equipment, without proper containment methods in place, bacteria can enter the processing area through other means. Smart managers need to keep all company areas clean, not just the main processing area.

Lobbies, bathrooms, locker rooms, storage areas, and break rooms should all be cleaned regularly. Beyond acting as another layer of defense from bacteria entering into food and machinery, thoroughly cleaning these areas can stop bacteria from propagating in the first place.

6) Keep Foods In Different Stages Separated

From raw, to cooked, to packaged, foods should be separated at every stage of processing. Segregating foods at different stages will help prevent raw and unprocessed foods from contaminating foods further along in processing.

As an added precaution, keep employees from different stages of processing from interacting during shifts. Employees can unintentionally carry bacteria from the foods they are working with and pass that bacteria to other employees, who could turn contaminate more food.

7) Supervise And Monitor

It is important for supervisors to continually monitor the sanitation practices of employees. Do not consider it micromanaging – safety is too important to ignore. As a supervisor, make sure not only company cleanliness procedures are being properly executed, but also be on the lookout for areas that can be improved upon.

One of the best ways you to boost your plant’s safety and improve its production ability is to cross-train all of your employees in different aspects of equipment safety and maintenance.

Want to learn more about what you can do to run a better, safer, and more effective poultry production plant through employee cross-training? Download our free informative Ebook, Why and How to Cross-Train in Maintenance, and take your plant to the next level.

The post 7 MEASURES TO TAKE TO AVOID CONTAMINATION MISHAPS appeared first on DeLong’s Gizzards & Poultry Processing Equipment.

Here are a few best practices for keeping machines clean, healthy, and running at maximum efficiency.

Seals, Filters, and Breathers

Most heavy machinery is comprised of a number of moving parts and sections. These sections are segmented from one another with seals and filters designed to keep contaminants from moving from one part of the machine to another.

As part of regular scheduled maintenance, place particular emphasis on your machines’ seals, filters, and breathers (Apriso). Inspect seals regularly to ensure they’re in proper working order, change filters at regular intervals to mitigate any dirt or contaminant buildup, and keep breathers clean to avoid creating a vacuum that can suck contaminants into the vulnerable inner workings of the machine.

Machinery Dismantlement

The bigger the machine, and the more moving parts, the higher the probability that a once-over with a pressure washer just won’t cut it. There are often parts hidden from view that can’t be reached while the machine is assembled, meaning that a conventional cleaning will only allow grime to build up in its inner gears and parts.

While it may not be necessary for every piece in your plant, don’t be afraid to dismantle one of your machines in order to deep clean and inspect every last moving piece (Daimer) . For the best results, stagger machinery dismantlement so that other machines can make up for the lost productivity of the one being deep-cleaned.

Gear Lubrication

Unlike friction materials, seals, and gaskets, gears and shafts do not break down as often and can go for a much longer period of time before being replaced. However, just because they’re still working doesn’t mean they’re not collecting contaminants that can clog up other processes.

As another method of protecting yourself from breakdowns, ensure that all the gears on your machines are well-lubricated so that they can move without grinding or snagging on other parts of the machine. Lubricated gears present less potential for parts to get caught or for dirt and dust to settle, meaning that the machine as a whole will be at less risk for an accident. The same holds true for bearings and shafts.

Contamination Prevention

There’s a reason why car enthusiasts keep their cars in the garage or under a cover: nature is a brutal thing to machines. It may take time, but any machine exposed to heat, rain, wind, and other weather will eventually have its parts rust, rot, and break down, so it pays to keep your equipment as insulated as possible.

The less your equipment is exposed to the elements, the better. In addition to the seals on the machine itself, check the seals on the doors, windows, and other openings that exist on your factory floor. The more airtight you can make your factory, the longer your machines will last.

For more great strategies you can use to push your machinery further, download our free Ebook, Why and How to Cross-Train in Maintenance, and take your poultry plant to the next level today.

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