Company story developed by: Oregon MEP (OMEP).
Pan’s Mushroom Jerky (Pan’s), an Oregon-based food manufacturer, was poised for significant growth from wholesale and direct to consumer market channels. Pan’s leadership team knew they needed to significantly increase their capacity and began building out new space.
Pan’s partnered with OMEP (similar to the regional Industrial Resource Centers in Pennsylvania) to create a plan for the new layout that would allow Pan’s to reach their target capacity. Beginning with a tool called the value stream map (VSM), OMEP created several rounds of facility layout programming via 3D modeling, optimizing processes based on constraints of the building and new equipment. A certified enterprise integrator (CEI) was consulted for mass flow diagraming. As a result, the team learned that there was room for improvement in the temperature sensor part of production. At that time temperatures were taken by hand using candy thermometers and were not always reliable. The OMEP team implemented an Internet of Things (IOT) temperature sensor that automates measurements and reports data out at regular intervals to streamline this process.