Manufacturing | Food Production
Aspire Bakeries Achieves 8% Faster Response Times and Prevents Hundreds of Thousands in Losses with Walt® Smart Radios by weavix
Business Challenge
Aspire Bakeries operates one of the most complex manufacturing environments in North America. Their Swedesboro, New Jersey facility spans 450,000 square feet and produces over 1 million pounds of dough weekly for major brands including Taco Bell, Dunkin’ Donuts, Tim Hortons, and Starbucks. With 750 employees working across three shifts in a 24/7 operation, effective communication is critical to both safety and productivity.
The facility presented unique communication challenges that directly impacted operations:
- Language Barriers: 60% Spanish-speaking workforce with additional French Creole speakers created dangerous communication gaps in safety-critical situations
- Massive Scale: 15-minute walk required to traverse the facility, making physical coordination impossible during emergencies
- Safety-Critical Environment: 40,000 pounds of ammonia on-site for freezing operations requiring instant emergency response capabilities
- Equipment Downtime Costs: Production line failures costing approximately $30,000 per hour with no way to diagnose issues remotely
- Limited Communication Infrastructure: Legacy Motorola radio system restricted to only 4 channels for entire 750-person workforce
The previous Motorola radio equipment created significant operational inefficiencies. Teams couldn’t send pictures or video to diagnose equipment problems, managers had zero visibility into operations when off-site, and language barriers prevented effective coordination between maintenance and production teams. With no message history available, shift handoffs lacked critical operational context, and emergency communications were limited to voice-only across language barriers.
“Communication was a roadblock for us, especially with multiple languages. When people would be on the radio with broken English or Spanish, there was a gap in communication to really try and understand how to repair equipment and for the operations team to be able to talk to the maintenance team.”
Shakai Busch
Senior EHS Manager, Aspire Bakeries
Why They Chose Walt
Shakai Busch, a 20-year veteran of the facility who serves as Senior EHS Manager, championed the Walt implementation after a critical incident where poor communication nearly caused a major facility evacuation made the need for a comprehensive solution urgent.
“We were introduced to weavix’s Walt Smart Radio by a consultant whose daughter works for a company who had just used Walt and it benefited them for communication. I saw the benefit from a safety aspect of how it could benefit myself, but also especially the language barrier that we were really struggling with at the time. I saw that as a tool that would enhance the problems that we were having.” – Shakai Busch.
The decision to implement Walt was driven by specific capabilities that directly addressed Aspire’s operational challenges:
- Real-Time Translation: 40+ languages with AI transcription eliminating the need for human translators in safety-critical situations
- Visual Communication: Push-to-Talk/Video/Picture capabilities enabling remote equipment diagnosis and reducing response times
- Unlimited Scalability: Ability to create unlimited channels and support facility growth without infrastructure limitations
- 24/7 Mobile Access: Management oversight capabilities for round-the-clock operations monitoring
- Emergency Response Features: Mass alert capabilities and dedicated SOS functionality for facility-wide emergency coordination
The leadership team recognized that effective communication was essential not just for operational efficiency, but for maintaining zero-injury safety performance in an environment with significant hazards.
The Solution
Aspire Bakeries implemented a comprehensive Walt Smart Radio System deployment that transformed communication across their entire operation. The implementation expanded their communication capabilities from 4 channels serving 750 employees to unlimited channels with advanced features supporting 200+ active users.
Implementation Scale:
- Current Deployment: 200+ Walt® devices with expansion to 250+ planned
- Coverage: All departments including Production, Maintenance, Quality Assurance, Warehousing, Utilities, and Safety
- Timeline: 12-month rollout from initial pilot to near-complete facility adoption
- Legacy Integration: Gradual transition from Motorola radios with only 2 departments remaining on legacy systems
Comprehensive Feature Deployment: The solution included Advanced Language Translation for Spanish dialects and French Creole, Push-to-Talk/Video/Picture (PT3™) for instant visual problem-solving, AI Transcription & Timestamping with complete conversation history, Mass Emergency Alerts that turn devices into visual/audio alarm systems, dedicated SOS functionality for man-down emergencies, Global Employee Directory with unlimited channel creation capability, and Mobile App & Web Console Access for 24/7 remote monitoring.
Departmental Coverage:
- Production teams use the system for line coordination and quality communications, Maintenance leverages visual diagnostics and remote troubleshooting capabilities
- Quality Assurance documents issues with timestamped photos and coordinates with production teams
- Warehousing coordinates shipping and receiving with real-time visibility
- Utilities manages critical systems including ammonia refrigeration with emergency alert capabilities
- Safety conducts facility-wide emergency communications and incident documentation.
The deployment required minimal operational disruption, with teams gradually transitioning while maintaining full productivity. The system integrated seamlessly with existing safety protocols while dramatically expanding communication capabilities across the facility.
Key Use Cases
Emergency Evacuation Coordination Mass alerts enable instant facility-wide communication during incidents, allowing selective area evacuation without shutting down entire operations.
Predictive Equipment Maintenance Visual diagnostics through photos and videos allow maintenance teams to arrive pre-equipped with the right tools, reducing diagnostic time and minimizing costly downtime.
Cross-Language Safety Communication Real-time translation enables safety managers to deliver consistent instructions across diverse workforce, ensuring compliance and reducing incident risk.
Remote Critical System Monitoring 24/7 mobile access allows managers to monitor temperature-sensitive operations and coordinate emergency responses from anywhere, preventing catastrophic product losses.
Shift Handoff Documentation Timestamped conversation history provides complete operational context for incoming shifts, eliminating information gaps and improving continuity.
Multi-Department Coordination Unlimited channels enable seamless communication between Production, Maintenance, Quality, and Warehousing teams for complex operational coordination.
Training and Knowledge Management Teams create training materials using real photos from their own operations, improving training effectiveness and building institutional knowledge.
Equipment Downtime Reduction Instant visual problem diagnosis eliminates guesswork, allowing maintenance teams to respond faster and more effectively to equipment failures.
Results
The Walt implementation delivered measurable improvements across safety, efficiency, and financial performance at Aspire Bakeries.
Operational Efficiency Gains:
- Maintenance response times improved by 8%, translating to an 8% decrease in equipment downtime.
- With line shutdowns costing approximately $30,000 per hour, this improvement delivers substantial daily savings.
- The facility eliminated 10-15 minute cross-facility walks through instant photo/video problem diagnosis and coordination.
- Message volume exceeded 33,000 communications in May 2025 alone, demonstrating high adoption and active usage across all shifts.
Safety Performance Improvements: During a construction incident where a contractor hit a water pipe causing potential evacuation, Walt enabled rapid response coordination.
“We were able to get them out quick enough because we were able to communicate what was going on, and we were able to get them back in quick enough because we could find that it wasn’t a real emergency event.” – Shakai Busch.
This prevented production shutdown and potential safety incidents. Real-time translation capabilities eliminated safety risks from misunderstood instructions in a facility with 40,000 pounds of ammonia and extensive automated equipment.
Financial Impact: Plant manager Pam Heinrich used 24/7 monitoring capabilities to prevent freezer failure during off-hours, avoiding hundreds of thousands of dollars in finished goods loss.
“I was watching the temperatures, and I was watching my team call utilities, and I was able to just call the maintenance manager and said, you’re going to lose freezer. You have to make a decision right now what you’re going to do.”
Pam Heinrich
Plant Manager, Aspire Bakeries
The team successfully coordinated product movement between freezers, preventing catastrophic loss.
Communication Transformation: The facility achieved true 24/7 management visibility with managers able to monitor operations remotely. Quality teams now create training materials using real photos from their own operations rather than generic materials, improving training effectiveness. Timestamped message history eliminated “he said, she said” scenarios and enabled teams to reference previous solutions for recurring problems.
“It’s 24/7 communication for a 24/7 business. That’s exactly what it gives us—the ability to know what’s going on as managers 24/7.” – Pam Heinrich.
Expansion Plans
The success at Aspire’s Swedesboro facility has generated significant interest across their multi-facility network. “We’ve been kind of selling Walt to some of our other bakeries as well, and there does appear to be some interest on the corporate level,” explains Shakai Busch.
Planned Expansion: Corporate-level discussions are underway for system-wide deployment across all Aspire Bakeries locations. Other facility managers have visited Swedesboro to observe the implementation and are requesting information for their own sites. The proven ROI model from Swedesboro provides a clear business case for broader adoption.
Strategic Vision: Aspire Bakeries sees weavix’s Walt Smart Radio as a competitive advantage in their industry, enabling better safety performance, operational efficiency, and quality control across their network. The technology supports their growth strategy by providing scalable communication infrastructure that can adapt to facility expansions and operational changes.
Contact Information
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