May Newsletter
VOLUME 27 NO. 5Probably the fastest growing segment of Gem Equipment’s business is field service work. Repair and rebuild of French fry potato fryers is a major contributor to this growth. During the past year, Gem has repaired and/or rebuilt fryers for 5 customers. This work has been performed on fryers manufactured by 3 different fryer manufacturers. These jobs normally include engineering, manufacturing and fieldwork. Four factors are responsible for Gem’s fryer repair/rebuild business. The first is that most small food processing equipment manufacturing and installation companies do not have the engineering resources to handle fryer rebuilds. Larger competitors in this industry have the engineering resources, but most have no interest in jobs that require fieldwork. Over the past 10 years, most processors have cut staff, eliminating the personnel to do these jobs themselves. Lastly, Gem is proficient with Computational Fluid Dynamics, the technology that allows this company to observe oil flowing through the fryer kettle on the computer monitor. Improving oil flow in the fryer kettle is usually part of a rebuild job.
Gem’s field service work is not limited to fryers. Recently this company replaced the bearings and carrier chain sprockets on 2 large French fry potato blanchers. Most of the big blanchers manufactured over the last 25 years by this company use a platform belt, also a product of this company. This belt, which was conceived and patented by a French fry potato processor in the early 1980’s, uses a sheet metal panel, which is supported and conveyed by side chains. Each panel is curved so that six panels form a complete circle. Most panels are either 10 or 12 feet long. The original panels were 8 inch pitch and manufactured using 16 gauge type 304 stainless steel. Sixteen gauge was used because existing punch presses could not punch the required pattern in thicker material. Since modern punch presses are capable of punching the required pattern in thicker material, most panels manufactured recently are 14 gauge. The growth in the size of french fry potato blanchers led to the development of 12 inch pitch panels.
These belt panels (one of the most difficult items Gem manufactures) have a life of about ten years. Normal practice has been to rebuild the panels to extend their life for several more years. The preferred way of accomplishing this is to sell the customer 25 to 50 new panels. The new panels replace defective panels, which are shipped back to Gem’s Mount Angel plant to be rebuilt. After rebuilding, the panels are shipped back to the customer to replace the next batch of panels, which are sent back to be rebuilt. This procedure continues until all the defective panels have been fixed. A few times Gem personnel have gone to the customer’s plant with manufacturing fixtures and rebuilt the panels on site. All the panels are taken off the blancher, repaired and then reinstalled. These field fixes have not been as successful as rebuilding the panels at Gem. Unfortunately, when start-up time approaches, getting the job done on time becomes more important than achieving the best quality. For this reason, in the future unless there is an emergency, Gem Equipment will no longer rebuild these belt panels in the customer’s plant.