What I Do, or give me something to sing about.
Working at Pan-O-Gold is lot like being at Great Harvest except that half of the ingredients are artificial and the dough never gets touched by human hands. I'm on 3rd shift making 50-70,000 loaves a day.
The two step sponge/dough mix is used just like at GH. The sponge rests for 3 hours in a trough that's 8'x4'x4', then gets dumped into the mixer then back into the trough where I wheel it to my station (it weighs 200-600 lbs). I put it on a lift that brings it up and dumps it in a hopper. My machine cuts the dough by groups of 7 (I set speed and weight) and conveyors it to the rounder. Dough is rounded into a ball and in placed onto another conveyor for a 5 minute resting trip to the moulder where it is flattened, rolled and dropped into a 5-strap pan. The pans travel by conveyer to the proofer (looks like an oven) for a 30 minute ride. The proofed loaves are then sent to the oven for another 30 minute ride. As they leave the oven the loaves are removed from the pan by a lot of little round suction cups. The pans go back to the pan stacker and the individual loaves go on a 1 hour conveyor belt trip to cool. It looks like a multilevel race track. From there they travel to the 4 slicers. Each loaf gets sliced, bagged (the loaf doesn't move, the machine places the bag over the loaf!), and placed into one of those blue stackable bread racks. A machine stacks them where an actual human gets to take the stack over to the truck loading area. There are 22 loading doors and 1 receiving door.
Humans control the machines and make sure they run smoothly. I unclog any dough jams from the rounder that may occur and fill the flour dispensers that sift flour onto dough resting areas. Once in a great while a machine will break down and we have to care for the rising dough. Mechanics are always on duty to deal with little problems throughout the plant. All of this reminds me of the factory at the end of the "Terminator". I cope by keeping songs in my head, usually musicals as it takes awhile to get through the entire score. I like the ones with a break away pop hit.
My divider is in the middle of the operation. As I look toward the rounder I see the sponge mixer about 30 feet away, to the right is the dough mixer, behind him is the proofer, above and behind that is the bread cooling area, beyond that is the bagging area, to the right of the proofer is the oven, then is the pan stacker, continuing the turn to the right is the moulder where the bread is panned up then back to my dividing station. Except for bagging, I can easily see all the work stations. The plant is expanding with extra mixers, ovens and baggers. The plan is to add another crew to 1st & 2nd shift and eliminate the 3rd shift. This should happen by late Spring.
The two step sponge/dough mix is used just like at GH. The sponge rests for 3 hours in a trough that's 8'x4'x4', then gets dumped into the mixer then back into the trough where I wheel it to my station (it weighs 200-600 lbs). I put it on a lift that brings it up and dumps it in a hopper. My machine cuts the dough by groups of 7 (I set speed and weight) and conveyors it to the rounder. Dough is rounded into a ball and in placed onto another conveyor for a 5 minute resting trip to the moulder where it is flattened, rolled and dropped into a 5-strap pan. The pans travel by conveyer to the proofer (looks like an oven) for a 30 minute ride. The proofed loaves are then sent to the oven for another 30 minute ride. As they leave the oven the loaves are removed from the pan by a lot of little round suction cups. The pans go back to the pan stacker and the individual loaves go on a 1 hour conveyor belt trip to cool. It looks like a multilevel race track. From there they travel to the 4 slicers. Each loaf gets sliced, bagged (the loaf doesn't move, the machine places the bag over the loaf!), and placed into one of those blue stackable bread racks. A machine stacks them where an actual human gets to take the stack over to the truck loading area. There are 22 loading doors and 1 receiving door.
Humans control the machines and make sure they run smoothly. I unclog any dough jams from the rounder that may occur and fill the flour dispensers that sift flour onto dough resting areas. Once in a great while a machine will break down and we have to care for the rising dough. Mechanics are always on duty to deal with little problems throughout the plant. All of this reminds me of the factory at the end of the "Terminator". I cope by keeping songs in my head, usually musicals as it takes awhile to get through the entire score. I like the ones with a break away pop hit.
My divider is in the middle of the operation. As I look toward the rounder I see the sponge mixer about 30 feet away, to the right is the dough mixer, behind him is the proofer, above and behind that is the bread cooling area, beyond that is the bagging area, to the right of the proofer is the oven, then is the pan stacker, continuing the turn to the right is the moulder where the bread is panned up then back to my dividing station. Except for bagging, I can easily see all the work stations. The plant is expanding with extra mixers, ovens and baggers. The plan is to add another crew to 1st & 2nd shift and eliminate the 3rd shift. This should happen by late Spring.