A long-time BABBCO customer contacted us about an inefficient bagel line at one of their facilities. The existing bagel oven was over 30 years old and was the cause of a lot of downtime and product waste. The original supplier of the oven was no longer in business and they were contacting us for advice on how to correct the issues with the existing oven. The customer wanted to replace the oven but due to the limited downtime available they didn’t believe it was possible. They could only afford to have the bagel line out of operation for 8 days. To compound the issue, this bagel line was the only line the customer had in operation that was capable of producing bagels for one for their largest accounts. If this line was not back in operation by the morning of the 9th day, they could potentially lose this key account. We advised the customer that the limited downtime period was not a problem and that the BABBCO Oven Replacement Program was designed for this exact purpose. We immediately scheduled a trip to the customer’s facility to review the project engineering details and to develop a complete project schedule.
The project involved removing the existing 12′-wide by 100′-long (useable hearth dimensions) Indirect-Fired Tunnel Oven and installing a new 12′-wide by 100′-long (useable hearth dimensions) BABBCO Direct-Fired Tunnel Oven with Turbulator System in its place. The BABBCO installation team completed the project ahead of schedule and the customer was producing quality product by the morning of the 8th day. The BABBCO oven replacement program allowed this customer to replace an older, inefficient tunnel oven with a new, energy-efficient BABBCO tunnel oven with the latest heating technology. The new oven reduced operating costs, improved product quality, decreased baking time by 20% and increased production capacity.
