Processing's Weekly Mixer: The value of protecting maintenance planners, and more
Welcome to the latest installment of Processing's Weekly Mixer, which highlights recent content from EndeavorB2B brands relevant to process manufacturers.
This week's entry features content from Plant Services, Automation World, Chemical Processing and Food Processing, as well as this week's content from Processing.
The value of protecting maintenance planners
From Plant Services: When a planner routinely shares a craft or supervisory role, the planning never gets done and the value of the planner is lost.
Author Doc Palmer writes:
Management must actively protect the planning function. The investment of proper planning provides millions of dollars in company profit, but many companies fail because they misunderstand the proper use of planners. They frequently use planners for non-planning duties. And even when planners are not doing other duties, a company’s flawed understanding of planning and planning processes leads to failure.
The value of properly protected planning is enormous: a single planner can provide up to $17.7 million for a company. A single planner can plan for up to 30 craftspersons. Proper planning (including scheduling) increases wrench time for craftspersons from 35% to 55%. A 30-person crew thus performs the work of 47 persons (55%/35% = 1.57, 1.57 × 30 = 47). At a loaded wage rate of $50/hr, a craftsperson costs $104,000/yr ($50 × 2080 hr/yr), so gaining 17 persons gives an extra $1,768,000 of “free” labor. One may ask, “Why do we need extra labor? Aren’t we keeping up with the plant and taking care of operator issues?” Yes, but the typical maintenance force deals with a lot of reactive work. Furthermore, when already “keeping up,” by definition, any extra labor goes toward proactive work heading off reactive work altogether. And the industry rule-of-thumb for proactive work is 1:10, meaning that every extra $1 spent on proactive work saves $10 on the “bottom line.” The company greases a bearing properly at the right time rather than replaces a bearing at an inconvenient time causing collateral damage and loss of product. The free labor for the extra 17 craftspersons thus invested yields the company an extra $17.7 million per year.
To achieve this success, management must actively protect planners to complete the initial planning on all the new work, to assess all the incoming feedback for updating job plans, and to fill the crew schedules each week. However, instead of “planning” at all, many companies commonly give planners other duties. Planners might participate on project teams and various committees. Project engineers find great value in having knowledgeable craft planners on project teams including helping with technical research and other engineering support. They may task planners with designing new PMs. Planners become fair game for safety committees and root cause analysis teams. Planners might handle contracts for vendor maintenance support. In addition, planners often fill in for supervisors and craftspersons.
All of these activities provide value, but they take away from planning. Management must balance the annual $17.7 million per year in profits gained from a planner when planning against the value of any other activity. Should management re-assign a planner to be a welder or a supervisor for a day? Should management choose a planner instead of a craftsperson, supervisor, engineer, or anyone else to participate on a team or committee? Probably not.
Read the entire article HERE.
The convergence of IT and SCADA: A new model for industrial automation development
For decades, industrial control systems and enterprise software evolved along separate paths. Control systems prioritized reliability and stability; enterprise software prioritized speed, iteration and scalability. Today, those worlds are beginning to converge.
Modern SCADA platforms, particularly web-based architectures such as Inductive Automation’s Ignition, are reshaping how industrial systems are built, deployed and maintained. As a result, the development methodologies long used in IT are starting to influence the way automation solutions are engineered.
Within Process and Data Automation (PDA), this convergence is playing out inside the company’s Digitalization Group (DSG). Historically focused on the connection between enterprise systems and factory operations, DSG now finds itself working at the intersection of web software and industrial control.
For Eric Williams, Digitalization Group manager at PDA, the shift represents something larger than a technology upgrade. “SCADA systems are increasingly becoming web applications.” he said. “Once that happens, it changes not just the tools you use, it changes how you think about building systems.”
This shift in thinking is leading to a new model for industrial automation development.
Read the entire article HERE.
Microplastics, leadership shifts and industry honors: April's top stories from Chemical Processing
From a $144 million federal push to address microplastics in drinking water to a CEO transition at Dow and Edison Award wins for chemical giants, here's what moved the needle for Chemical Processing's audience in April 2026.
Listen to the latest episode of the Distilled podcast below.
Food and beverage processors push the envelope on digital, data transformation
From Food Processing: Many food and beverage processors have begun to reap the benefits of digital transformation initiatives and investigate new opportunities to revolutionize their businesses and operations.
Andy Hanacek writes:
As data, digital interfacing and virtual tools continue to work their way into numerous manufacturing and processing industries, companies in the food & beverage industry join the cavalcade of digitization toward a future of integrated automation and the potential for artificial intelligence and machine learning in their facilities.
The industry is beyond pioneer stage, says Jack Payne, solution consulting director for food & beverage and process manufacturing at Aptean (www.aptean.com), and it’s also beyond just the big companies taking on the early risk.
“As with any new technology, there always are the early adopters and the laggards, and the [Covid-19] pandemic really fueled the fire underneath a lot of the people that weren't early adopters to get on board with a digital transformation journey,” he explains. “What I’m hearing now is, ‘The big guys are doing this — we need to stay competitive.’ ”
Indeed, some larger companies initially jumped in with both feet, and Payne says many mid-market food & beverage companies have now finished their initial digital journeys, moving on to the next phase of growth.
Read the entire article HERE.
Recapping the week on Processing
Articles
Four tips for selecting conveyor belts for food processing applications
Maximize power generation efficiency using advanced analytics
Processing Q&A: Powder drying trends driving innovation in bulk solids processing
Are your drains putting your facility at risk?
The cultural changes required from the factory floor to the C-Suite to build the manufacturing company of the future
Podcast
The life and work of Andrew Jenike with John Carson
Processing’s Photo of the Month — April 2026
Processing’s photo of the month for April is this view of the Impact Sizer Dryer at the Specialty Minerals plant in Adams, Massachusetts. Specialty Minerals is a division of Minerals Technologies. The plant produces both ground calcium carbonate and precipitated calcium carbonate for a wide range of consumer and industrial applications in industries such as Paper & Packaging, Automotive, Construction, Foods, and Pharmaceuticals.
The photo is from an upcoming exhibition by photographer Thad Kubis titled “Up Close at the Limestone Plant: Industrial Photography in Adams, MA” that opens May 28 at The Adams Theater and runs until September 6. Kubis says that his photography has been greatly influenced by the work of Charles Sheeler and Paul Strand, directors of the 1921 film “Manhatta,” which is considered by some to be the first American avant-garde film. For the Specialty Minerals photos, Kubis was particularly inspired by Sheeler’s photos of Ford’s River Rouge plant from the 1920s.