Changeover
Also called Change-over, Line changeover, Sanitation turn
The time a line is out of action between two different products, for cleaning, tooling and getting back into spec.
Between your run and the next brand’s run, the line has to be emptied, cleaned and set up again. Depending on what ran before, that is anywhere from a couple of hours to several days.
Two things make it longer. Allergens — if the previous product contained a major allergen and yours does not, the clean is a full validated one rather than a rinse. And strong flavours; citrus in particular is notorious for carrying over, so many sites schedule an extra day after a citrus run before anything delicate.
This is why a co-packer’s calendar is never as free as it looks. A gap of two days between two booked runs might be entirely consumed by changeover, and a booking system that does not model it will cheerfully sell you a slot that cannot physically happen.
NextBatch keeps this straight for you. Cost per unit, tolling tiers, yield and traceability all derive from the same plan you and your co-manufacturer share — so none of it is a number somebody typed twice.
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