How to plan a productive come back after the summer for your agrifood plant?

In the food and beverage sector, some facilities experience a seasonal slowdown during the summer. If that’s your case, this period offers a strategic opportunity to strengthen your production line performance, plan automation projects, or initiate a technical audit.

At Storcan, we’ve been supporting food manufacturing companies across Canada and the United States for nearly 50 years in optimizing their production lines. Here are our 5 best practices to implement this summer for a more competitive fall season:

1. Perform a Technical Audit of Your Production Line

A technical audit helps identify low-performance areas, aging or underused equipment, and potential improvements for the future. Through detailed line analysis, you can pinpoint high-ROI projects, prioritize actions, and build your CAPEX investment plan.

A technical optimization audit allows you to rethink, reorganize, and optimize the entire plant or specific industrial processes—by integrating automation, improving layout and flow, or better managing resources.

An automation audit evaluates your current level of automation and identifies opportunities to further automate or enhance existing technologies.

Our experts can conduct a personalized industrial audit, on-site, according to your constraints.

2. Plan Preventive Maintenance

Major interventions are often easier to schedule during the summer. It's the ideal time to:

Inspect and replace critical components
Take stock of your spare parts inventory
Reprogram outdated PLCs
Perform deep cleaning of your equipment
Update your HACCP procedures

Implementing a preventive maintenance plan can reduce unplanned downtime by 30–40%.

3. Prepare Your Future Automation or Modernization Projects

Can your current line:

Handle multiple product formats without extended changeovers?
Adapt to new products in the fall?
Be automated to reduce labor dependency?

If the answer is no, it’s time to explore solutions such as:

A smart motorized roller conveyor to streamline flow
The STRAPALL automatic strapping machine, adjustable to various box sizes, to automate your end-of-line packaging
An inspection system to meet food safety standards

Our engineering team can deliver a custom solution, while minimizing downtime on your current line.

4. Train Your Operators on New Technologies

Summer is the perfect time to upskill your internal teams. Consider:

Training staff on new automated systems
Implementing food safety protocols (X-ray, metal detection, automated sorting)
Building a culture of performance and prevention

Investing in your people also boosts long-term retention and productivity.

5. Centralize Your Data for Better Line Management

Do you have real-time visibility into your performance? Use this summer to update your management tools:

Track key KPIs (OEE, scrap rate, line speed, workstation efficiency)
Deploy accessible dashboards for remote monitoring
Prepare for the integration of MES or IIoT systems

Storcan: Your Partner for a High-Performance Fall

Storcan is a well-established manufacturer-integrator based in Québec and serving North America, known for delivering custom automation solutions. Whether you need to upgrade an existing line or launch a new one, our team supports you from the initial audit through to commissioning.

With operations in both Canada and the U.S., we understand your shop floor realities.