Frito-Lay, the multi-billion-dollar subsidiary of food and beverage giant PepsiCo, maintains 36 plants in U.S. and Canada. These facilities produce dozen of snacks, including the well-known Lay’s, Fritos, Cheetos, Doritos, Ruffles, and Tostitos brands each of which sells over $1 billion per year.
Frito-Lay plants produce in the high-volume, low-variety process model common to commercial baked goods, steel, glass, and beer industries. In this environment, preventive maintenance of equipment takes a major role by avoiding costly downtime. Tom Rao, Vice President for Florida operations, estimates that each 1% of downtime has a negative annual profit impact of $200,000. He is proud of the 1 ½% unscheduled downtime his plant is able to reach––well below the 2% that is considered the “world-class” benchmark. This excellent performance is possible because the maintenance department takes an active role in setting the parameters for preventive maintenance. This is done with weekly input to the production schedule.

Discussion Questions
1. What might be done to help take Frito-Lay to the next level of outstanding maintenance? Consider factors such as sophisticated software.
2. What are the advantages and disadvantages of giving more responsibility for machine maintenance to the operator?
3. Discuss the pros and cons of hiring multi-craft maintenance personnel.