How Data-Obsession Will Save Your Plant Money, with Gautam Sane, Senior Reliability Engineer at CP Kelco

In this episode of "The Maintainers, a Bluecap Community Podcast," David Lee and Jake Hall host Gautam Sane, Senior Reliability Engineer at CP Kelco. CP Kelco, a nature-based ingredient solutions company, has been in the food and beverage industry for 90 years. With his background in chemical engineering, Gautam brings a wealth of experience and knowledge to his role. He shares his journey from the oil and gas industry to the food and beverage industry and discusses the similarities and differences between the two.

David and Jake dive into the importance of reliability in the manufacturing industry and the challenges faced by companies to ensure consistent uptime. Gautam explains how he has implemented an OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness) model at CP Kelco, using data analysis to optimize asset performance. By tracking key process parameters and identifying the root causes of delays, Gautam and his team have been able to drive up the quality of their products and eliminate inefficiencies in their manufacturing processes.

Looking to the future, Gautam emphasizes the need for environmentally-friendly manufacturing practices. As climate change becomes a pressing concern, he believes that factories worldwide will need to focus on sustainability and reduce their environmental impact. By investing in environmentally-friendly solutions and being at the forefront of the sustainability movement, companies can not only contribute to a greener future but also enhance their reputation and bottom line.

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Guest Bio

Gautaum Sane is a Senior Reliabilty Engineer at CP Kelco. He’s originally from Texas – growing up in Houston and going to college at the University of Texas at Austin and holding a bachelor’s degree and PE license in chemical engineering and certifications in Maintenance & Reliability and Project Management.

Gautam got his start in the Oil and Gas industry as a Process Design Engineer for Fluor Daniel, which is an Engineering, Design & Construction firm servicing the major refinery and chemical operations along the Gulf Coast. He would work on large-scale expansion projects and his role involved thermodynamic and hydraulic modeling to design the industrial equipment, transfer piping, instrumentation and controls hardware for these operations. Some of the clients he worked with included ExxonMobil, Dow Chemical, and Marathon Oil.

Following oil and gas, Gautam decided to venture into the Food and Beverage industry and joined CP Kelco. He first worked as a typical field engineer who was responsible for both the day-to-day process troubleshooting and managing continuous improvement projects for my process area. He has since worked in Operations, Engineering, and now Maintenance departments, bringing a unique blend of technical knowledge and operations experience to his role. Since taking on the Reliability Engineer role, he have learned the best practices for Predictive Maintenance, Mechanical Integrity, and Bad Actor Elimination programs and processes.

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Guest Quote

“I like to solve problems in a way that they get solved once and for good, once and for all. I don't want to just put a bandaid on a problem just to come back to it, you know, day later, a week later, just to deal with, just to deal with the same problem again. And whenever our operators would bring issues to my attention, I wouldn't just try to solve it there. I would try to figure out, ‘okay, how else can I prevent this from happening in the future?’” – Gautam Sane

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Time Stamps 

*(01:28) Opening Ice Breaker

*(02:35) Gautam's background

*(04:47) Comparing Oil & Gas to Food & Bev

*(06:57) Segment 01: The Maintainer Mashup

*(08:39) Where you'll find a CP Kelco product

*(10:06) What assets you'll find at their plant

*(11:39 ) How to change your team's culture around reliability

*(14:50 ) Ramping u