Expert Insights: Mart Wicker Explains Power Monitoring for Food Plants

Power monitoring is one of the most underutilized tools in food and beverage manufacturing. Many facilities don’t realize the hidden vulnerability that inconsistent power, harmonics, and energy waste can pose until it’s too late.

We sat down with Mart Wicker, a veteran in industrial operations, to answer the most common questions about power monitoring and why it’s critical for efficiency and food safety.

Q1: Isn’t power just electricity? Why do I need to monitor it?

Mart: It’s easy to think of power as just “on” or “off,” but modern equipment doesn’t work that way. Motors, VFDs, compressors, and refrigeration systems are sensitive to voltage issues and harmonics that can quietly stress equipment and disrupt processes. Power monitoring gives teams real-time visibility into these conditions so problems can be addressed before they lead to downtime or equipment damage.

Q2: Won’t power monitoring be complicated to roll out?

Mart: From experience, the systems available today are far easier to deploy than people expect. Modern power monitoring solutions are scalable and designed to integrate with existing equipment, allowing teams to start small and expand as needed. They provide actionable insight that helps reduce unplanned downtime, protect equipment, and improve energy performance, without adding complexity to daily operations.

Q3: Can power monitoring actually prevent equipment failures?

Mart: Absolutely. By tracking power quality indicators, you can see stress on motors, compressors, and other equipment early. It allows your maintenance team to act proactively rather than reactively, avoiding unexpected shutdowns.

Q4: Doesn’t power monitoring just help lower energy bills?

Mart: Energy efficiency is just the beginning. Monitoring also protects product quality, supports HACCP compliance, and keeps critical systems running smoothly. In a food or beverage facility, uptime is just as valuable as savings.

Q5: Isn’t reactive maintenance enough?

Mart: Reactive maintenance is expensive and risky. Power monitoring enables proactive maintenance, helping you identify problems before they cause downtime or product loss. It’s about turning data into action, and that’s where real resilience comes from.

Q6: What are some examples of areas to monitor for power?

Mart: For example, a poultry processing plant may monitor the power usage of conveyors, evisceration systems, chillers, or transfer motors to reduce the risk of unexpected failure. Monitoring power across processing lines helps facilities identify equipment stress, inefficiencies, and developing mechanical issues before they lead to downtime.

By tracking baseline load profiles, facilities can understand what normal amperage looks like at each station and quickly spot abnormalities. Gradual increases in amperage may indicate bearing wear, belt misalignment, chain tension issues, or product buildup, while sudden spikes can signal jams or blockages before a full shutdown occurs.

Power monitoring can also reveal underload conditions, such as equipment running without product or interruptions in product flow. In addition, comparing power usage across multiple stations helps identify bottlenecks that may be limiting throughput, while trend data can be tied back to production rates, staffing, or line speed changes to improve overall operational performance.

Q7: What does power monitoring look like in a facility?

Mart: Power monitoring is typically managed through a centralized dashboard that gives maintenance and engineering teams real-time visibility into equipment performance and abnormal operating conditions. Day-to-day oversight usually falls under maintenance managers, reliability leads, supervisors, and maintenance technicians, while engineering and operations teams often use the data to analyze trends and troubleshoot issues.

Facilities can configure alerts for conditions such as high load events, low-load or no-load conditions, sudden current spikes, or gradual upward trends that may indicate developing wear. These alerts are commonly delivered through text messages, email, or mobile app notifications and can be escalated to supervisors or engineering teams if issues are not resolved quickly.

A real-world example might look like this: It’s Saturday at 6:30 AM, and an evisceration conveyor suddenly jumps from 24 amps to 32 amps. An alert is immediately sent to the maintenance supervisor’s phone, allowing the plant team to inspect the issue before the conveyor fails completely. Without monitoring in place, the problem may not be discovered until the line is already down, resulting in lost production and emergency repairs.

Power monitoring isn’t just a “nice-to-have”, it’s a strategic investment. From detecting hidden energy waste to preventing costly downtime and protecting food safety, it gives facilities the insight and control they need to operate efficiently and reliably.

Want to learn more about how power monitoring can transform your facility? Visit food, beverage, and bottling.