Consistency
is a virtue in baking no matter if the product is cookies,
bread or cakes. How a company reaches product and manufacturing
consistency is an enduring question that B.C. Bundt, a continuous
cake manufacturer, answers by applying simple concepts to
highly-automated baking operations.
B.C. Bundt is a 15-year old company with manufacturing
plants in Birmingham, Ala., Taylor, Pa., and a soon-to-open
operation in Salt Lake City. By design and purpose, the
three facilities are “mirror images of each other,”
according to Jim Hokes, B.C. Bundt’s chief operating
officer, and Bill McRee, the company’s president.
For this reason, what is written about one applies equally
to the other two. For this article, Baking Management visited
Taylor, Pa.
Single-minded purpose
The first simple concept B.C. Bundt employs is focus: “We
produce ring cakes, that is our market, and we pursue it
aggressively,” McRee says.
In pursuit of this niche market, B.C. Bundt follows a systematic
plan. It begins with funding. The company does not borrow
money and pays for new operations with cash flow. “We
could have built Salt Lake City before this, but we wanted
to wait until we acquired enough capital from our existing
operations,” McRee says.
B.C. Bundt also has no set amount for major capital expenditures.
“We spend what’s necessary to help us run efficiently,”
McRee adds.
Although its financing may be conservative, B.C. Bundt’s
manufacturing operations and philosophy are not. The company
operates seven days a week producing cakes on three shifts,
24 hours a day. It produces 2,000 lbs. of product per hour,
employs 9-10 persons per shift and operates at 101% to 104%
of capacity.
B.C. Bundt achieves these operating rates by merging people
and equipment. “We look at what an individual can
do and we design a manufacturing operation to get the most
out of that individual,” Hokes says.
Because their product is highly specialized, Hokes and
McRee had to use their engineering and manufacturing expertise
to design, engineer and install customized equipment at
their Birmingham Plant in 1986. Even as they were moving
into their first plant, the two owners were planning a second
one, which had to be “a mirror image of the first
plant.” Why? Because experience told them the second
plant doesn’t run as smoothly as the first because
there is no one there to be a hands-on operator.
B.C. Bundt established a centralized administration operation
at corporate headquarters in Tampa, Fla. to keep overhead
costs down.
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