Digitalisation Is The Secret To Traceability - Right First Time Ingredients Drives Finished Product Quality
Traceability is key for any manufacturing process. Regardless of whether you are a food and beverage manufacturer, a pharmaceutical company or creating paints and coverings, it is vital that you track the constituent parts of your finished product and can trace these back to source ingredients.
Why Is Traceability Such A Challenge
Accurate traceability continues to be a major challenge for manufacturers, simply because most of the tracking is done manually and there are so many steps where things can go wrong.
For example, if you are performing manual powder weighing of ingredients, how do you know that each ingredient comes solely from the same batch? What happens if the operator records the wrong details or wrongly labels the dosed batch?
The challenge does not stop there; tracking the ingredients through your production line can be a little like following which cup has the coin under it, and then when your finished product flows off the production line, how confident are you that it has the right label and the right batch code?
The Answer Is Digitalising Traceability
Works orders from SAP are tracked and visualised through a bakery
Like every other sector, manufacturing is on a journey of digitalisation, connecting processes together and seamlessly flowing data between these electronically. For manufacturing, this has not been as easy compared to other sectors, as there are still many tasks that are fully manual and a reliance on operatives to pass data from one step to another naturally introduces high occurrences of errors.
Most manufacturers now have ERP and specialist manufacturing systems in place that can track the process from start to finish; the challenge is how you integrate what is physically happening with what digitally is thought to be happening.
Automating Powder Weighing
Let’s start at the very beginning of the process: powder weighing of source ingredients and batching. OAL’s APRILTM Robotics is fully automating this process; each source ingredient is kept separate, with no cross-contamination, so as the robotic arm weighs out each batch, an accurate record is kept of the constituent parts.
With the ability to integrate this into both ERP and manufacturing systems, the APRIL solution takes human intervention out of the equation. Each batch is uniquely coded and the component of each batch along with their origins are automatically captured.
This means that your manufacturing process starts with the right data that can then be automatically tracked across the entire process.
Labelling & Verification
Date code verification with AI based vision using APRIL Eye
At the other end of the process, we have the challenge of ensuring that the finished product has the right label on it, whether that be a container of soup or a pot of paint. The fact that you have accurate traceability data flowing digitally through your manufacturing system while the produce flows down your production line, you can be confident in knowing the contents of each product. The challenge now is ensuring it is labelled correctly.
Step one is tight integration into your ERP and/or manufacturing system to ensure that the correct data is being used to generate the label. For instance, if you’re printing county of origin (COO) information you need to ensure you can track COO to the batch/works order. Having a smart labelling solution is also key. At OAL, we provide solutions to not only ensure labels are produced in line with legislative and your customers’ requirements, but also verify that what should be printed is actually printed using APRIL Eye.
The final step is ensuring that the right label is placed on the right container or packaging; here again OAL label verification solutions integrate tightly with the ERP and/or manufacturing system so at the end of the production line, AI-powered software can be used to take image feeds from cameras and verify that every product leaving your production line is labelled correctly.
Smarter Traceability, Greater Productivity
Digitalising Traceability in the ways outlined above significantly reduces the risk of errors and ensures you can track each batch to the finest detail of its constituent parts.
By automating the flow of data between the manufacturing steps through your ERP/manufacturing system, you eliminate paperwork and many of the manual tasks that currently slow down your production process.
By leveraging the technology available to digitalise this critical part of manufacturing, you can reduce risk and increase the accuracy of traceability while increasing the efficiency and productivity of your end-to-end process.
Read our client success story HERE.
If you would like to discuss more about how these solutions work and how they would be beneficial to your operation, then simply reach out to the OAL team – contact us.
6 Ways To Make Cooking Soups and Sauces More Efficient In Food Manufacturing
Efficiency, taste, and sustainability are paramount in food manufacturing, particularly when producing soups and sauces. Traditional methods often fall short, being labor-intensive and energy-consuming. Discover how Steam Infusion can redefine your production metrics—reach out to the OAL team today.
For food manufacturers, the cooking process is fundamental to producing high-quality finished soups, sauces and other liquid products. However, traditional processes and technologies mean that this can be lengthy, labour-intensive and highly inefficient in terms of energy consumption.
The good news is that this does not have to be the case. Over the past few years, more organisations have transitioned away from traditional steam jacketed kettles to utilising Steam Infusion technology; this is significantly reducing cooking time and cleaning in place (CIP) time while improving the quality of the cooked product. Plus reducing water consumption in the cleaning processes by up to 90%.
How much energy should I be using to cook?
To heat 1,000KG of a typical sauce from 20 to 85 Degrees C require c76 kWh of input energy. A similar amount of input energy is required to clean the vessel using hot water and cleaning solution.
From studies with our partners at the University of Lincoln, real-world usage is considerably higher, with energy consumption varying from 500 kWh per 1,000KG of finished product to 1,200 kWh+.
In the Netherlands, combining Steam Infusion with OALs robotic chef, APRIL has achieved sub 250kWh per tonne of finished product. These technologies form part of a Carbon Trust project to improve efficiencies further as we move towards a net zero economy.
Here we take a closer look at how Steam Infusion cooking can make you more efficient:
What is Steam Infusion cooking?
Steam Infusion is a direct contact heating process whereby steam condenses on the surface of a liquid, gently yet rapidly cooking a range of food and beverages up to a temperature of 140oC. The patented Steam Infusion VactionTM Pump rapidly heats, mixes and pumps food ingredients and products, offering near perfect energy transfer. By varying the steam pressure and flow rate through the pump, the processing conditions change, from gentle cooking to intense mixing and pumping with a homogenising effect,
In simple terms, rather than heating the vessel that the product is in and utilising a secondary mixing process, steam infusion injects the heat directly into the product in-vessel or in-pipe.
Benefit 1: It tastes better
Slow cooking times can lead to loss of vibrant colours and flavours during the cooking process. With Steam Infusion this is not the case, as the rapid heating process ensures that vital nutrients and colour are not simply boiled away but retained. This not only ensures that your finished product tastes great but also enables you to reduce the quantities of ingredients used. For example, we have seen certain products(recipe dependent) achieving a 50% reduction in required spices to achieve the optimum taste.
Benefit 2: Reduced cooking time
Steam Infusion is a far quicker way to cook. For example, a 1,000kg batch of soup can be heated from 20 to 85 degrees C within 10 minutes. When combined with reduced cleaning time and robotic batch processing product through-put can be increased by 6x, driving far greater cooking capacity for manufacturers.
Benefit 3: Reduce Clean-In-Production time
As Steam Infusion is not heating the vessel, but heating its contents, this approach prevents burn-on, which is a major issue that lengthens CIP time. When this is combined with robotic automated pouring, rather than traditional pump and piping technology, the end-to-end cleaning process is simplified and shortened, with a CIP water reduction of greater than 90% not being uncommon.
Benefit 4: Removing Cross-Contamination
Following on from the fact that Steam Infusion prevents burn-on and also enables more effective cleaning, a significant benefit is removing cross-contamination. You eliminate the risk that vessels or pipes being used still have the remanence of your last batch, therefore avoiding compromise of taste and, more importantly, the health risk of cross-contamination of allergens or other ingredients.
Benefit 5: Reduce Energy Consumption
As the cost of energy continues to rise and food manufacturers are under growing pressure to be more sustainable, anything that can be done to reduce energy consumption is a significant benefit. OAL is part of the Souper Green project in partnership with Solina, supported by Marks and Spencer PLC, the Department for Energy Security, and Net Zero’s Industrial Energy Efficiency Accelerator (IEEA). By incorporating a lightweight cooking vessel, this programme provided a more efficient heating operation and easier cleaning, leading to an impressive 80% energy savings from production trials.
Benefit 6: Greater reliability
Any failure of your cooking technology results in a significant loss of production – cooking time is money after all. By removing the complexity of traditional processes and equipment, Steam Infusion is making the whole process more reliable. Less failures result in continuity of productivity, while greater accuracy of the cooking process reduces wastage both of failed batches and reduced quantities, as a result of burn-on.
Steam Infusion is generating some impressive results for food manufacturers across the globe, improving product differentiation factors while delivering tangible operational benefits. We would love to share more with you about the benefits OAL Steam Infusion technology can bring to your operation and to show you how this would work on your recipes in our test centre.
Simply reach out to the OAL team – contact us.
Breaking The Myths of Robots in Powder Weighing
Our focus in this blog is to challenge the myths preventing the adoption of robotic automation in powder weighing and handling. Fear of the unknown and failure often deter progress, but by confronting these misconceptions, we can ease the path towards inevitable automation across various industries.
We all know that one day we will make the move to an electric vehicle; it is inevitable - it is the way the world is going. However, it is estimated that currently only 1 in 250 cars on the road are electric. There are two key factors that hinders change, ‘the fear of the unknown’ and the ‘fear of failure.’
It is a similar story in the world of manufacturing. We all know that the future will be “automated” and in contrast to our digital robotic everyday lives (think smartphones, robotic vacuum cleaners) the pace of adoption of these new technologies in industry can often seem slow due to the same two fears.
When we fear change, the coping mechanism is to create myths…well they are not really myths; they are excuses for not making a decision or taking action. In this blog we look to break some of the so-called myths that are delaying manufacturers from making the inevitable step on the journey to robotic automation.
Our focus is on the area of robotic automation in powder handling and weighing as this is the area in which we are specialists in and it covers a broad spectrum of industries from food and beverage to tyre manufacturers, from cosmetics to paint and coverings.
Myth: We don’t have room in our factory for a robot
One of the benefits of robotic automation is that it can operate in a very compact cell. OAL’s APRIL Robotics standard cell can store 6,000kg and weigh powders in a space of only 7m x 7m which is normally less space than taken up by existing powder weighing operations.
Myth: The powders we work with are too cohesive for automation
The precise movement of the robotic arm and powerful software alogithims means that even the most cohesive powders can be handled accurately. With APRIL, we have tested over hundred of different powdesr types and consistently achieve accuracy of +/-1%, often more. We always welcome organisations to provide samples for us to test.
Myth: We have too many ingredients
Simplifying the complex is where robotic automation excels. A single APRIL cell can store up to 120 different raw materials in the cell with unlimited raw materials stored in ASCs offline. One of the benefits of robots is that they always remember where they have put things, unlike humans.
Myth: We make lots and lots of different batch types
Robots are far better at repetitive tasks than humans as they never get bored or distracted. They are also better than humans at constantly changing batch types. They do not have to learn new recipes; every batch is digitally instructed.
Myth: We don’t have staff who can operate robots
Most manufacturers have packaging line robots and understand the training and maintenance requirements. Using robots upsteam provides opportunities to upskill operatives and engage teams with modern digital technologies.
Myth: The required investment is too great and payback period too long
Most powder weighing applications can achieve a payback in two years through reduced operating costs and improved raw material yield. Other key benefits to consider are improved agility, quality and traceability security, and the reduction in health and safety risks. Add all of these together and an attractive business case can be created.
We would love to hear any other myths you may have about robotic automation, and always happy to discuss these with you. Simply reach out to the OAL team – contact us.
5 Compelling Reasons to Prioritise Pre-Weigh Automation in Your Next Personal Care Digitalisation Initiative
Industry 4.0's wave is reshaping the personal care sector, merging the digital and physical worlds to create smart factories. However, this digitalisation journey often neglects a crucial stage - pre-weigh operations, which remain labour-intensive and unchanged. As part of the industry's nascent digitisation, it's crucial to prioritise pre-weigh operations automation, providing a springboard towards operational excellence.
Industry 4.0 is opening up fresh and exciting opportunities in the personal care sector, making operations more streamlined and efficient. It's bringing our digital and physical worlds closer together, paving the way for smart factories as the next big thing in manufacturing. The first significant move? Upgrading an often-ignored area: pre-weigh operations.
Pre-weigh operations currently feel a bit old-fashioned, still heavily reliant on human work and untouched by the digital age. Typically there are over 400,000 powder additions by hand per year. This stands in stark contrast to the advanced automated packaging lines we use today. But this manual step in the process is ripe for digital transformation. A standard APRIL™ Robotics Weighing System can automatically dose 500,000 powder additions per year. Here are five compelling reasons to automate the pre-weigh process:
A pre-weigh area before and after robotic automation
Health & Safety is Paramount
Regular exposure to powders, dust, and potentially carcinogenic ingredients present significant health and safety risks to operators. Automating pre-weigh operations can vastly reduce these hazards. The APRIL™ Robotics System ensures precise dose of every powder, reducing chances of operator error, injuries, and fatigue. A safe, efficient workspace improves not only staff wellbeing but also the performance of the company.
Boost Efficiency
Many personal care companies embrace “lean manufacturing”. Pre-weigh is the first step in the manufacturing process. Downstream constraints in either mixing or packing are elevated ensuring they are always served right-first-time raw materials, eliminating downtime.
Better Yield and Precision
Automating pre-weigh processes can lead to significant improvements. Having an accurate recipe from the start makes the process reliable and efficient, reduces waste, and maximises return on investment. The APRIL™ Robotics Weighing System uses proven weighing algorithms to accurately dose and handle even the trickiest ‘non-free flowing’ raw materials, down to +/- 1 gram.
Assured Quality and Traceability
Modern consumers want to be confident in what they're buying. With the APRIL™ Robotics' automated weighing and powder dosing systems, personal care manufacturers can ensure each powder is dosed correctly the first time. This eliminates human error, provides traceability, and helps earn consumer trust.
Bonus: Embracing the Power of AI and Just-In-Time Manufacturing
AI-based scheduling can make operations more dependable and adaptive, which are vital features of just-in-time manufacturing. The APRIL™ Robotics System can directly receive orders from your ERP, automate over 500,000 manual powder additions per year, and even offer protection of IP by removing the need for operators to know the constituents of any formulation, thereby securing your "secret sauce".
Conclusion
In a nutshell, in the fast-moving world of personal care manufacturing, digitalisation is key. To remain competitive, pre-weigh automation must be embraced, paving the way towards improved safety, reliability, and profitability. The vision is clear: integrating automated pre-weighing into your digitalisation strategy is the catalyst towards leaner, safer, and more productive operations.
With APRIL™ Robotics, we can not only revolutionise pre-weigh operations, but also speed up full-scale factory digitalisation.
Simply put, digital adoption is less a choice than a competitive imperative. APRIL™ Robotics stands ready to guide you through smart factory transformation, stepping confidently towards Industry 5.0.
Auger vs. Robotic Powder Dosing: Exploring the Future of Powder Handling Technology
Precise dosing and handling of powders is critical in ensuring product quality and consistency in batch manufacturing. Auger-based powder dosing has been the go to technology for many years but robotic powder dosing is revolutionising how powders are dosed and handled. Here we will compare these two technologies, examining their advantages and limitations, to help you decide when choosing the right powder dosing solution for your application.
Precise dosing and handling of powders is critical in ensuring product quality and consistency in batch manufacturing. Auger-based powder dosing has been the go to technology for many years but robotic powder dosing is revolutionising how powders are dosed and handled. Here we will compare these two technologies, examining their advantages and limitations, to help you make an informed decision when choosing the right powder dosing solution for your application.
Auger Powder Dosing: The Traditional Choice
Auger-based powder dosing systems have long been the go-to solution for handling powders. They utilise a rotating auger screw housed within a tube or trough to transport and dispense powders at a controlled rate. The auger system has several key advantages:
Simplicity: Auger dosing systems have relatively simple mechanical designs, which make them easy to maintain and operate.
Adaptability: Auger systems can be easily integrated with other equipment, such as mixers, hoppers, and conveyors, making them a versatile option for a variety of applications.
However, auger systems also have their limitations:
Typical 10 bin auger system with storage limitations
Limited accuracy: Auger dosing systems can be less accurate than robotic dosing systems, especially when handling powders with varying particle sizes and densities.
Clogging and contamination risks: The mechanical nature of auger systems can lead to clogging, requiring frequent cleaning and maintenance. The same design also raises concerns about cross-contamination when handling different powders.
Limited dosing range due to turndown ratio: Auger dosing systems often have a limited dosing range due to their turndown ratio, which is the ratio of the maximum to minimum flow rates that the system can handle. This limitation can make it challenging to accurately dose smaller powders or adapt to varying production needs. In contrast, robotic dosing systems can offer greater flexibility and precision across a wider range of dosing requirements.
Robotic Powder Dosing: The Future of Powder Handling?
Robotic powder dosing systems are a more recent innovation, using advanced robotics and automation to handle powders with precision and accuracy. These systems offer several key advantages over auger dosing:
High accuracy and repeatability: Robotic dosing systems can achieve extremely accurate dosing, with minimal variation between doses. This is particularly important for applications requiring precise and consistent powder dosing.
Flexibility and expansion: Robotic dosing systems can easily adapt to different powders and dosing requirements, making them highly versatile and suitable for a wide range of applications. Storage can easily be expanded by adding additional storage containers to the system
Reduced contamination risks: Robotic dosing systems are designed to minimize contact between the powder and the dosing equipment, reducing the risk of contamination and clogging.
However, robotic systems also have some drawbacks:
Higher upfront cost: The advanced technology and engineering of robotic powder dosing systems mean they have a higher initial investment than auger systems.
Complexity: Robotic dosing systems may require more specialised knowledge and skills to operate and maintain, potentially increasing training and ongoing maintenance costs.
Conclusion: What's right for your application?
Both auger-based and robotic powder dosing systems have unique advantages and limitations, each suited to different applications and requirements. Auger systems are a cost-effective and simple solution for many powder handling needs, while robotic systems offer high accuracy, flexibility, and reduced contamination risks.
When deciding which system to choose, it is essential to consider your specific application requirements, such as the level of accuracy needed, the variety of powders being handled, and the overall budget. By carefully weighing the pros and cons of each technology, you can select the powder dosing solution that will best meet your needs and help ensure the highest quality and consistency in your products.
The Future of Powder Handling Health & Safety: Robotics Takes the Lead
If you’re in the bakery business, you’ll already be familiar with the many health & safety considerations that must be monitored and mitigated. There are the usual ones that come with any industrial facility, but there are a whole host of those specific to the powders and dust and how to protect your operators, without a simple and cost-effective solution. But that’s where robotics comes in.
Health and safety are always top priorities in manufacturing, but when it comes to handling powders and dust, the risks can be particularly challenging to manage. Operators must contend with the potential health risks associated with powders and dust, and finding simple and cost-effective solutions to mitigate these risks can be a major challenge.
Fortunately, robotics is emerging as a game-changer in powder handling safety. By automating the handling of powders and dust, robotics can help protect operators from exposure to hazardous materials and improve overall safety in the workplace. With robotics, manufacturers can reduce the risks associated with powder handling, while also improving efficiency and productivity.
The perils of powders
Powder ingredients can be difficult for operators to work with safely. Any fine powder in any industry, will create dust that could have a negative impact on operator health as the actions taken with the powders, from sieving and weighing to conveying and blending, all generate dust as the product is moved from one place to another.
Flour dust in particular is labelled a hazardous substance as defined by the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH) Regulations 2002, because repeated and long-term exposure can cause occupational asthma and respiratory irritation, such as rhinitis, as well as skin conditions like dermatitis. There are many steps that must be taken to reduce the amount of dust people breathe in to the lowest level reasonably practicable, but the measures are not always correctly interpreted as we saw from the £159,000 fine handed to a bakery in 2018 that failed to protect its staff.
The risk of working around these powders in bakeries is stark. While the overall incidence rate of occupational asthma has decreased since 1999, the rate of new cases amongst bakers as reported by occupational physicians is now the highest of any occupation in any industry, according to the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) in the UK. So what are the measures that bakeries can take to protect operators, and are they sufficient?
Rising regulation
The HSE in the UK requires manufacturers to avoid exposing their employees to dust, or where not practical, to adequately control exposure. The Workplace Exposure Limit (WEL) of flour dust is 10mg/m3 (averaged over 8 hours) for long-term exposure and 30mg/m3 (averaged over 15 minutes) for short-term exposure. Yet the HSE believes that 2mg/m3 dust in the air for staff working in the weighing and handling of powder ingredients is possible to achieve. How, you may wonder?
HSE advises manufacturers to keep ingredient handling to a small, dedicated area with good airflow, only accessible to trained staff who open all containers carefully and scoop gently. It’s recommended that companies implement local exhaust ventilation (LEV) systems at the source of the dust, using short extraction ducts and disposing of the air in a safe place away from windows, doors and air inlets. Manufacturers should also conduct regular maintenance as well as implement alarms for blockages or failures in the extraction system. The facility should try to only use low-dust additives and single dose packets to avoid the need for weighing, as well as supplying the appropriate PPE to its workforce, or even RPE (respiratory protective equipment) in some cases, and ongoing health surveillance for your employees… The list goes on, as do the costs. The bakery that was fined in 2018 spent £232,000 on solutions to ensure compliance and protect its staff - a hefty sum that reveals the potential costs involved in the implementing the current measures.
No one would deny that these are all vital aspects of bakeries’ duty of care to its staff – no one’s health should be in danger in the workplace. Yet it doesn’t seem right that even with all of these measures, there’s still an incidence rate of 38.8 per 100,000 (not accounting for under-reporting) for bakers and confectioners who have been exposed to flour dust during the course of their work.
According to the Federation of Bakers’ publication, A Baker’s Dozen, if there is a solution out there that can help to reduce risk, it should be implemented, as can be seen on page 9:
“To comply with the regulations exposure levels should be kept not only below the WELs, but are reduced as low as reasonably practicable. In practice this means that if there is a technically achievable and cost‐effective control that reduces exposure, it must be put in place.”
Robotics to the rescue
We all know that the best way to reduce risk is to ensure that staff are not put into situations where they will encounter a hazard. That’s why the latest solution, the APRIL Robotics Ingredient Handling system is the new solution the industry has been waiting for. By using robotics to carry out the manual weighing and ingredient handling tasks, bakeries can transform their operations, achieving unmanned ingredient weighing and taking their operators away from the risk, moving into the ‘Elimination’ section of the above hierarchy of control.
With an APRIL Robotics Ingredient Handling system, the task is fully automated, also helping to mitigate the problems of social distancing that are now part of our daily life. Using robotics and advanced automation, bakers can achieve unrivalled accuracy, efficiency and allergen control. The system allows you to weigh out ingredients to an accuracy of +/- 1g every time, improving consistency of batches while reducing waste. Combining exceptional storage density with an unparalleled turndown ratio for high accuracy ingredient scaling, a robot retrieves and manages your ingredients from a network of APRIL smart containers (ASCs) as per your recipe and scales them into an ASC Blend Container. The ASCs are managed through the system, including cleaning operations, offering a reliable and repeatable unmanned operation.
Furthermore, with APRIL Robotics there is a reduced chance of cross-contamination due the dedicated ingredient containers and contact components within the APRIL Robotics Ingredient Handling system. This also offers full traceability for the product, ensuring that products are labelled accurately to reflect the contents of the product on the packaging and helping to prevent product recalls as well as protecting consumer safety.
In this way, bakeries can not only protect their operators, but also boost productivity, increase accuracy, reduce the risk of cross-contamination and safeguard consumer health.
Remove operators from risky operations with APRIL Robotics while also boosting your bottom line.
Top 7 reasons for switching to robotics
Many industries have yet to take advantage of robotics. Yet there is so much that’s ripe for automation, particularly when it comes to automating processing tasks. Here we outline the top 7 reasons for switching to robots in your processing.
Many industries have yet to take advantage of robotics. Yet there is so much that’s ripe for automation, particularly when it comes to automating processing tasks. This activity offers significant value, not just in terms of cost savings but also to achieve a step change in quality and traceability. Here we outline the top 7 reasons for switching to robots in your processing.
1) 24/7 reliability
Productivity is a challenge all over the world, and one that has been further impacted by COVID-19. For example, the UK has seen reduced productivity growth over the last ten years, as output per hour and real wages remained no higher in 2020 than they were pre-2008. It’s clear that we all must do something different to produce a step change.
While labour has traditionally been the answer to reduced productivity in many industries due to its flexibility and cost-effectiveness, robots are inherently more reliable than humans. With a mean downtime of 30 minutes per year, they also don’t need to stop to maintain their effectiveness, helping to boost your productivity. This means that they can operate 24/7 with increased levels of accuracy when compared to humans and with zero risk of cross-contamination
Using robots allows manufacturers to do the same tasks as humans currently carry out but much more accurately, without error or waste, and at much faster rates. This can transform productivity levels, allowing manufacturers to become much more competitive, as well as reducing the costs incurred as only one operator is needed to manage the system.
2) Affordable automation
The cost of robotics is coming down, just at the point when the cost of labour is increasing across the globe. The processing stages in many industries can be particularly affected by these rises due to the number of operators usually involved.
The living wage in the UK is currently at £8.91 (as of April 2021), and is set to rise further so it’s easy to see how these labour-intensive tasks add up and can start to chip away at your bottom line. In addition, rising production costs and cut-throat competition across the board require manufacturers to do something differently, which typically means a high degree of automation to increase efficiency. The manpower required to meet your productivity levels can (almost) never be justified, however, if you can find the areas where you have many people doing manual tasks and automate this, the labour cost reduction alone will soon justify the capital investment upfront.
By implementing robotic ingredient handling or batch processing, it’s possible to remove human intervention from traditionally labour-intensive activities, therefore allowing manufacturers to reduce associated labour costs and boost margins.
3) Accuracy and reduced waste
Unfortunately humans are, well… only human! When people are involved in processing, they make mistakes; that’s par for the course when performing repetitive tasks during an eight-hour shift. Unmanned facilities remove this risk as once programmed, robots can’t make mistakes.
Human intervention has been found to be the second largest cause of waste in food production. A major study by Brunel University, London, and Ghent University reviewed the production processes at 47 food manufacturers in Belgium and found that human error is a major cause of food waste, accounting for 10.9%*. In addition, human interaction can also be a source of cross-contamination, which can jeopardise consumer health and should be avoided at all costs.
As we’ve seen in the automotive industry, the benefits of robotics in terms of accuracy, quality and productivity cannot be ignored - it’s time to bring these advantages to more industries.
4) Overcome labour shortages
Whether it’s Brexit or COVID-19 reducing the available pool, we’ve seen that labour shortages are a recurrent problem for many industries and it’s becoming harder to recruit the labour force upon which we have traditionally relied. Many manufacturers have had to meet increased demand with fewer people while also implementing social distancing measures to protect staff, particularly challenging in labour-intensive areas of a facility.
Automation can vastly reduce the number of operators needed, whether it’s upstream in materials handling or downstream on the packaging line, increasing efficiency and accuracy, saving money but also reducing the number of people on what can sometimes be a crowded factory floor. Automation allows manufacturers to deliver their volumes and keep their people safe.
By investing in fully automated manufacturing systems, companies can mitigate the impact of labour shortages and improve profitability at the same time. To do this, the traditionally complex, labour-intensive manufacturing processes must be converted fully to automated operations and critically this means matching the full flexibility of manual operations. Furthermore, automation can simplify the tasks completed by operators, reducing reliance on highly skilled individuals.
5) Operator health & safety
Working with many raw materials, from powders to harmful chemicals, every day in manufacturing facilities can pose a significant risk to operator health as exposure to dust can cause occupational asthma and rhinitis. What’s more, lifting and tipping sacks of ingredients all day, every day can cause musculo-skeletal disorders.
Manufacturers must mitigate this risk and the best way to achieve this is to remove the operator from the activity by automating the tasks, protecting operator health and allowing them to move into more value-added roles.
6) Batch of 1
Production lines that can adapt to rapid product changes, customisations and small batch sizes are vital in today’s manufacturing environment. From changing consumer preferences to fluctuating raw material prices it pays to have the ultimate flexibility in your production. Consumers have begun to expect personalisation and customisation in their purchases - fulfilling these by hand would be too expensive, but robotic systems that can adapt and cater to consumer trends will keep themselves ahead of the competition.
To take advantage of this trend for personalisation, smaller batches are required so manufacturers can easily switch to meet customer requirements rather than the bulk processing approach that has been standard. This is where robotic solutions, such as the APRIL Robotics Robot Chef is ideal as you can produce 600L batches and operate much more flexibly to adapt to these growing trends. There are different programmes depending on what is needed for a given run, allowing manufacturers to adapt for a wide range of variables. An operator merely needs to select the correct programme and the robot takes care of the rest. Very little expertise is needed to operate these systems, and no extra time is required to make the change, bringing all of the benefits of robotic automation.
7) Traceability
With total traceability for your product and a full audit trail, robotic systems can help to prevent product recalls. By linking your system to your ERP, you’re able to track all of your ingredients throughout the entire process to give you a real-time view of your operations.
Working with a dedicated partner like OAL can help manufacturers to realise all these benefits whether it’s starting small or a more radical transformation. From system studies to 3D factory scans, we can ensure you achieve the right results with a clear financial justification for the investment to deliver ROI in under 24 months.
Ready to join the robotic revolution? Get in touch today!
Can robots replicate the flexibility of operators?
For a number of years now robots have been employed on the production and packaging lines. But what about robots in processing? Automation has been largely under-utilised in this area as humans have traditionally offered the greatest flexibility, but is this still the case? Here we explain how robots are more than up to the task.
For a number of years now robots have been employed on the production and packaging lines, taking care of standardised and repetitive tasks. But what about robots in processing functions? Automation has been largely under-utilised in this area as humans have traditionally offered the greatest flexibility, but is this still the case? Here we explain how robots are more than up to the task.
Operator flexibility
The challenge with any automation project is that people are hugely flexible; they can move from one task to another seamlessly, for example changing quantities of raw materials from one batch to the next and switching outputs at a moment’s notice. Labour in the UK and many other countries has also traditionally been highly cost-effective, which made humans an ideal solution on the processing line, scaling up and down to meet demand.
But as labour costs rise and skills shortages, as well as operator availability, continue to hit all industries hard, it’s clear we need to re-evaluate our reliance on operators and explore new automation opportunities to future-proof production.
It’s understandable that some manufacturers feel that robotics will never be able to replicate the flexibility of a person. It’s often assumed that robotic engineers will be needed onsite to set up each line and make the necessary programming updates for each product changeover. Not only would this be time-consuming but most manufacturers wouldn’t have access to engineers with this sort of expertise, which has meant that robots haven’t appeared to be a viable solution for lines with multiple changeovers. Yet with the right solution, this is not the case at all. Manufacturers need robotics systems to be easily configurable for different products or raw materials and able to adapt to the changes that inevitably occur within any manufacturing facility. With their speed and agility, robots are ideally placed to handle frequent product changes as is often required in today’s manufacturing environment, particularly as we must increasingly cater to the batch of one.
Robotic accuracy
When assessing operations to automate, it can be easy to miss certain vital tasks that operators complete. For example, if you take an operator who weighs out powders to a recipe, on the face of it the primary task is weighing. However, the person is also conducting various secondary tasks, e.g. validating the raw materials and their quality, locating the raw material, cleaning etc. If these secondary tasks aren’t incorporated into the robotic solution, the system won’t offer the required performance. It’s important to fully evaluate the full remit of each operator to understand the exact scope of the solution required to deliver positive results from day one and ensure no flexibility on the line is lost.
If, for example, you’re looking for a robotic solution to powder weighing with frequent product changeovers, the first question to answer is, how to define flexibility? In the case of the APRIL Robotics Weighing System, flexibility is defined by the number of raw materials stored and the dosing range. In this instance, the use of robotics gives us a wide operating envelope. This means that, for example, we can go from weighing out a small batch of cocoa powder to a large volume of salt in the same operation with no cross-contamination or time-consuming set-up as the robot is designed to work flexibly. The system has different programmes depending on what is needed for a given run, allowing manufacturers to adapt for a wide range of variables. An operator merely needs to select the correct programme and the APRIL Robotics Weighing System takes care of the rest. Very little expertise is needed to operate the system, and no extra time is required to make the change, bringing all of the benefits of robotic automation, such as increased accuracy and uptime, without the concerns around flexibility that many manufacturers have.
How to build a case for robots
System studies are a great way to explore automation and how it would meet your requirements without risk or commitment. You can trial your processes on our test equipment to understand how robots would fit into your processes and gain a realistic idea of the return on investment you’re likely to achieve. This makes the whole process a lot safer, not only because you can be sure our robotics solutions will work in your facility but also because it makes it easier to put the financial justification to the business when there is a clear roadmap for payback for the upfront investment.
Explore your options with APRIL Robotics and overcome the challenges of tomorrow.
Checklist for robotic transformation
While robots are well-established in a number of industries, it’s only more recently that the potential for robotics in the food industry has begun to be realised. Yet the challenges of recent years have encouraged forward-thinking food and beverage manufacturers to consider the benefits of robotics. But where do you start?
While robots are well-established in a number of industries, from automotive to electronic, it’s only more recently that the potential for robotics in the food industry has begun to be realised. And while robots in the packaging line have become more commonplace, it’s still rare to see them in the processing stages. Yet the challenges of recent years, from labour and skills shortages to COVID and productivity slumps, have encouraged forward-thinking food and beverage manufacturers to consider the benefits of robotics. But where do you start?
As with any digital transformation project, the key is preparation. Ensuring you’re clear on your objectives before beginning the project will ensure results and ROI can be achieved from day one, and working with a trusted and experienced partner will help to guide you on the journey. Below we’ve put together a brief checklist outlining some of the main steps you’ll encounter on your transformation journey, explaining how you can plan your way to a successful robotic processing project.
1) Instigating the project
High level scoping of project
Identify the broad areas that can drive the biggest improvements to the business. Where are there opportunities to make significant cost savings or generate competitive advantages? Could changing the way you make your products dramatically improve your flexibility or efficiency? Is this important to your customer? This is where automating your manual handling and batch processing systems through robotic transformation comes into the mix. Location, timescales, budgets and critical results will be key at this stage.
Appoint the owner and project team
Like all projects, having a project owner is vital to champion the robotic transformation, push activities forward and get them over the line. We find that these projects tend to have a Group lead and as well as one at a site level – usually these people are in the Operations team. It’s important to assign these roles as early as possible to give the project momentum and instil clear lines of communication. Consider any other stakeholders that might need to be involved in the project and assemble your project team.
Engage the IT team and technical specialists within the organisation
These key stakeholders will be critical to any transformational project so it’s best to get their buy-in early and bring them on the journey with regular updates and check-ins.
Establish your objectives & KPIs
Are you clear on the drivers of the project? What problem will a robotic system solve? Are you trying to reduce costs while boosting productivity? Is it more about health and safety? Or are you looking to cut waste? Understanding the answers to these questions will determine the success of the project.
2) Defining the project
Understand your current manual processes and workflows
To achieve this stage, the APRIL Robotics team undertakes a system study. Typically, we request up to a year’s data to fully understand your processes and products, allowing us to define your system requirements. We also conduct a site visit to get to grips with your existing operations. You’ll need a process flow diagram to help us understand how the tasks are currently undertaken and where any value-added tasks might be hidden to ensure no operations will be missed in the switch from manual to robotic processing.
Set your benchmarks
Once you’ve understood your current operations, it’s really important to define what you’re benchmarking against so that you can measure the success of the project and understand the ROI. What does good look like now and how much does the new process need to improve on this to justify the investment? This information will help in the decision-making process as well as playing an important role in judging the success of the project to determine future roll-out plans.
Determine integration requirements
It’s important to plan how the robotic system will integrate with your existing manufacturing systems, for example, do you use SAP? Do you have an MES that the robot will need to connect to? Establishing this information at the start can prevent delays down the road.
Conduct trials to validate concept
The APRIL Robotics team conducts trials before taking on any project to ensure that the specific ingredients involved can be weighed accurately or that the batch production achieves the desired results, giving you the confidence to push ahead.
Create your project plan and timeline
Once you’re happy with the first five points, the APRIL Robotics team will help to define your project plan and timeline to meet any critical dates and ensure you’re operational and meeting your objectives within the defined time frame.
3) Completing the project
Now it’s just the small matter of carrying out the project! Having regular reviews between the project team members from the outset ensures you remain focused on the defined objectives, facilitates the transfer of information, keeps the project on schedule and fosters good working relationships internally and with your partners. The APRIL Robotics team also arranges regular check-ins to make the process as smooth as possible and work round any unforeseen hurdles that are sure to crop up!