Gary Vaughan Wins $1,000

We here at Hanover Foods offered every ESOP employee $1,000 if they could suggest an idea that would save the company money and make us more efficient in the things we do.  Gary suggested the following:

“Install a hopper between the Tegra inspection belt and the 8” green bean pump to hold the green beans from between the blancher infeed and the 8” green bean pump when lines upstairs are not calling for green beans”

To the outside world this might not make sense.  In simple terms, beans used to fall on the floor when they came out of the cooker and the line was down for any given reason.  They couldn’t stay in the cooker or they would be over-cooked, so they overflowed onto the floor and ended up in the trash!

Gary’s suggestion will stop green beans from overflowing in the hoppers.  In addition, this extra hopper will help eliminate downtime while staff waits on green beans for the line to start.  Our best guess is that this will add roughly 3% to the total pounds per hour.  3% doesn’t sound like a lot until you consider how many canned beans we run in a year; 33 million pounds!

Gary recently received his $1,000 check in a ceremony held in the plant!