UK4 March 2019 http://www.controlengeurope.com Control Engineering UK
FOOD INDUSTRY FOCUS
efficiencies, reducing costs and being
more responsive to customer demands.
“Before embarking on the journey, it
is vital that all involved know precisely
what they are seeking to achieve,“
he said. “It is important to remember
that digitalisation is an evolution, not a
revolution,“ His advice is to plan Industry
4.0 implementation as a series of steps,
focussing first on areas where it is
possible to reap early benefits. “While an
entire smart food factory is still some way
off, genuine improvements in efficiency
and quality are achievable right now by
retrofitting Industry 4.0 technologies to
existing production lines,“ he said.
Smart food manufacturing will mean
different things to different people.
OAL visualises it as a flexible unmanned
factory from goods-in to end-of-line
packaging. “Traditionally the UK food
industry has relied on manual labour.
However, with labour costs rising, a
growing understanding of the problems
of human intervention – such as cross-
contamination and health & safety – and
the possibilities that are opening up due
to rapid advances in automation and
robotics technology, it is clear that the
food industry needs to start thinking
about smart food manufacturing,”
said Jake Norman, innovation manager
at OAL. “The most important step isthem is investment cost. “The food
industry is typically run on high volumes
and small margins. Supply contracts can
be short and seasonal demand makes
it hard to build large processes that are
flexible enough to be used flat-out all
year round. However, we find that the
cost argument is often the easiest to
overcome.
“A smart factory can be built one
piece at a time, as long as the vision
of the final goal is discussed at the
outset. Robots are a great example,
they have been used in stand-alone
packing applications for many years,
mainly because these jobs are tiring and
repetitive for human operators and the
ROI for a packing robot can be achieved
very quickly. Robots are increasingly
being used in process and assembly
situations today as they are now easier
to programme, are more flexible and
can work alongside human operatives
easily without the need for physical
guarding systems.”
Rowley argues that the cost of basic
automation provision can be small when
compared to a standalone piece of
equipment such as a new filling machine
or a process freezer for example. “Once
you have connected one piece of
equipment to a control and monitoring
platform – and it is providing production
data that allows for better control and
optimisation the process then there is a
strong driver to keep going and include
everything in the system,” he said. “This
is no bad thing because it is a positive
first step towards the creation of a fully
smart factory, which will ultimately be
more flexible, easier to control and more
competitive.
“It is an interesting time for food
producers and there are a whole host
of other solutions available today,
such as edge computing, predictive
maintenance and OEE benchmarking
that can help improve profitability
and scalability. Ultimately, however,
for a large number of SMEs, it is still
about taking that first step, and that
step will be much easier if taken in
collaboration with an experienced
integrator,” he said.!to gain a good understanding of the
digital technologies available, this is best
achieved by speaking to suppliers, systems
integrators or universities,” he advises.
“One of the biggest areas where we
see huge opportunity is in ingredients
handling. When people are involved in
food processing, they make mistakes -
that’s human nature when performing
repetitive tasks during an eight hour shift.
Traditional micro-weighing systems tend
to be too expensive and create cross-
contamination issues because of common
transfer lines and contact surfaces. OAL
has developed a robotic weighing system
that overcomes these issues with a cost-
effective automation solution, enabling
the beginning of a smart food factory
with unmanned ingredient handling.”Slow to adopt
John Rowley, sector manager at
Mitsubishi Electric, believes that the UK
food industry has been generally slow
to adopt smart factory technologies.
He said: “We often see food plants that
are operating without an industrial
network on the factory floor yet
establishing network connectivity across
a production site is the first step in
moving towards being a smart factory.”
Rowley believes that there are several
reasons for this, however chief among