Customer Testimonials

“The M.O.L.E.® is a verification tool.” “It is like a flashlight in the dark.”

Plant Engineer

“ We have run multiple analyses on the bread, Bagel and Bun ovens and made significant improvements not only in quality but have saved on fuel by maximizing oven efficiencies.”

Quality Assurance Director

“ I was impressed by the M.O.L.E.’s ability to clarify my process”

“Money’s tight but I think they’ll let me get it…”

Actual Profiling prospect:

• A Midwest Captive bakery to a no-frills bakery chain
• Serves 345 of 700 chain-wide stores
  • Illinois, Missouri, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa
• 90 employees - 120 production hours / week
• Primary bread output - Oat Bran, Wheat, Split-top wheat; White
  • Most white is out-sourced due to low-margin
• An Ingredient Supplier- used the M.O.L.E.® profiler to test his oven
  • 9 passes with iterative adjustments made “meaningful improvement”

“No-stale” program

• Captive vendor-customer relationship
• Store manager forecasts needs; orders semiweekly
• Gets measured on “stales”
• Distribution center (“we’re more efficient”) vs. route trucks
• 60,000 loaves per day
• Yield loss
  • ”not too much lost, but hate to throw anything away”
  • throw away for top too dark / sides under baked
• Cause
  • small zonal deltas lead to small yield loss
  • large zonal deltas can produce up to 50% yield loss

Case Study – Oven Process Control

Captive Bakery – single site of a National Grocery Chain…

• QA Director took a methodical approach; started with the first of 4 ovens to be “profiled”…
• Routine established: Under 20 minutes to set up the M.O.L.E.® for a good profile
• “The oven is the heart of the baking process”…“The M.O.L.E.® helped me to quantify the process” going on inside the oven --- QA Director

Finding and fixing temperature variations led to:

• Visual product quality and consistency improvements
• Significant reduction in scrapped bread
• A stable, controlled process from which to launch further improvements…
  • “The M.O.L.E.® allows me to make incremental process improvements.” --- QA Director

Control over oven performance allowed application of the science of bread-baking:

• Knowledge of time-to-critical-temperature enabled >10% reduction in throughput time, & saved energy
• Introduction of Specialty Enzymes led to
  • Extended shelf-life (3 days to 10 days!); which led to
    • Scheduling flexibility, reduced overtime, & more efficient utilization of trucking…at the Bakery
    • Reduced scrap…at the Grocery Retailer

Process Replicability

• A regional bakery in a multinational baking enterprise, has made a significant commitment to the standardization and tightening of it’s baking process across multiple ovens in over 11 facilities.
• This is NO SURPRISE! The bakery has a long history of FIRSTS…including the first sliced bread, which all great inventions measure against!!