As has been noted in this publication recently, the fastest growing segment of Gem Equipment’s business is repairing, rebuilding and upgrading fryers.  A major factor contributing to this growth is the size of this company.  Smaller companies do not have the resources necessary to design, manufacture and install the components for a fryer upgrade.  Larger companies tend to avoid projects that require fieldwork.  Gem probably has one of the best French fry potato fryer design teams in the business.  Fifteen percent of the company’s employees are either engineers or equipment designers.  Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) capability provides this company with a design advantage for both upgrades and new fryers.  CFD technology includes the ability to watch the oil flow through the fryer kettle on the computer monitor.  In spite of this company’s qualifications, fieldwork on rebuild projects is getting tougher.  Down time is being shortened and often there is no opportunity for debugging after a shakedown run. 

From the point of view of equipment suppliers and installers, start-up procedure should include a shake down run followed by downtime to address problems or shortcomings.  Unfortunately, the emphasis being placed on uptime is making downtime for debugging difficult to obtain.  This is creating an expectation that major work, including upgrading and rebuilding existing equipment, can be done so well that time for shakedown and debugging is not required.  On two recent jobs Gem Equipment encountered considerable extra cost because time was not allowed for fixing problems after an initial run.  Even though this company is always striving to do a better, more complete job, problems may be encountered after the project is supposedly finished.  On rebuild work, this may be due to hidden preexisting conditions.  Fryers, because of their high operating temperatures, coupled with many heating and cooling cycles are very prone to having problems that may not be visible until the unit is disassembled for rebuilding.  Even worse, some problems may not show up until after the rebuilt fryer starts cooking product.