Mr. Rajat Bagheria, Founder/CEO chef robotics
Important points:
- Traditional automation has been difficult for high-mix food production due to frequent product changeovers and the need for flexibility. While low-volume producers can easily use fixed automation, manufacturers with multiple SKUs and recipe variations struggle to implement cost-effective automation solutions.
- Human labor remains valuable in food production because it can adapt to changing conditions, changes in ingredients, and changes in recipes. However, hiring and retaining skilled workers is becoming increasingly difficult and costly, creating a need for more flexible automation solutions.
- AI-powered robotics is an emerging solution that bridges the gap between traditional automation and human labor. Using “see, think, act” models with advanced sensors and machine learning, these robotic systems adapt to different conditions, handle multiple SKUs, and provide more efficient and efficient solutions for food production. It may provide a consistent approach.
Although the industry has passed the worst of the coronavirus-era labor shortages, labor has been and continues to be a major challenge for food manufacturers. As we constantly grapple with rising costs and the impact on our bottom line, we’ve seen increased interest and adoption of automation across the major food packaging sectors. Manufacturers of high-volume, low-SKU mixes have traditionally invested in traditional automation to meet demand (think Lay’s, Kraft Heinz, and other major brands). High-mix manufacturers with dozens or hundreds of SKUs had limited options. Effectively automate beyond the basics of conveyors and sealers.
Why do high-mix producers have limited automation options?
The answer lies in flexibility and switching. For a production line that makes the same SKUs every day, a low-mix manufacturer can simply get custom automation for each SKU and run it every day. Additionally, you can effectively manage equipment disassembly and setup to fit your shift schedule. Traditional automation such as dispensers and depositors can operate efficiently in this type of environment.
However, the reality is very different for many food manufacturers, including fresh produce, direct-to-consumer, frozen food, and contract manufacturing. Many production lines have multiple changeovers within a shift, requiring different types of trays to be processed or switching between different meals such as salads, burritos, and sandwiches within the same shift. Sometimes. In these types of environments, it is often not possible to set guardrails to maintain process stability and ensure traditional automation works. Traditional automation Not flexible enough to be successful.
How should my team evaluate automation solutions?
Automation in multi-mix food manufacturing has had its limitations, but leaders looking to drive operational improvements have several options in today’s market.
- Evaluate the feasibility of dispenser/depositor
- Continue to leverage your workforce
- Get the best of both worlds with AI-powered robotics
When to utilize on-line dispensers and depositors
For low-volume operations, these solutions are cost-effective and reliable options to drive process improvements and cost savings within your facility. These tend to be high performing once configured and running, and are “easy to hire” due to readily available options on the market.
In some high-mix manufacturing operations, it may still be a cost-effective solution if one or two long meal runs can be assigned to specific lines to minimize changeover overhead. There is a gender.
That said, flexibility tends to be more limited, and for many high-mix operations, these solutions do not work well. As a thought experiment, if you have 300 different materials, you might need hundreds of custom-made depositors. Each has a low utilization rate and spends most of its time idle, making it difficult to justify a positive ROI. Additionally, if your marketing or culinary team changes recipes or formulas, it may require additional and costly changes to your hardware. These factors should be considered when evaluating the lifetime cost of equipment.
Advantages of being able to keep up-to-date with the latest information
The advantages of human operators are clear. Human operators offer great flexibility for different conditions. Variations such as changes in material properties, different trays, or even conveyor speeds are relatively easy for humans to adapt to and handle. If a recipe change occurs, you can run the new SKU with just a little training before you start. This ability to adapt is why labor is so prevalent in fresh produce, frozen ready meals, meal kit manufacturers, airlines and patient trays.
However, this adaptability comes at an obvious cost. Recruiting and retaining talent is difficult in today’s market, and hiring costs and lost production due to staff shortages can add up quickly. Maintaining quality due to churn is also a constant struggle for operations managers.
AI-enabled robotics: new options for flexible production
To break out of the labor paradigm and stay competitive, food manufacturers are turning to new forms of robotics enabled by modern advances in AI. These solutions offer the best of both worlds, being flexible and reliable and capable of maintaining strong performance across multiple shifts. In some cases, onboarding new SKUs can be done with a simple web app.
How is this possible? Let’s talk about the “see-think-act” model of robotics.
- look: Robotic systems can use a variety of sensors, ranging from cameras to high-precision depth sensors, to detect items in their environment and build images of the world around them.
- think: Using cutting-edge AI and machine learning, robotics solutions can interpret these environmental signals and determine the best way to move and behave to accomplish tasks, even in novel situations.
- Activities: After planning what to do, these AI-enabled robotic solutions can flexibly perform and accomplish the required tasks.
Previously, automation primarily only performed “behavioral” steps, had no or limited sensors to understand the environment, and repeated the exact same actions over and over again. With more sensors, computer vision models allow robotic systems to recognize items, such as trays on a conveyor or food in a bin, and perform different actions for each task.
These features make this new generation of automation robust to fluctuations. Different materials, different trays, new portion sizes, changes in conveyor speed, or even a completely new conveyor no longer stand in the way of high performance.
These recent advances in robotics and AI will significantly change the efficiency, quality, and operational excellence of food manufacturers. This change gives early adopters the opportunity to win customers by offering superior products at competitive prices.
So what’s the decision for existing high-mix manufacturers looking to improve their operations? It’s probably a mixture of all three. If possible, try to utilize a depositor for long-term operation with stable production throughout the year. AI-enabled robots will then be used to tackle the deposition of various raw materials that could not previously be automated. And finally, for things that neither can handle well, we use humans, as the underlying technology continues to improve.
rajat bagheria is chef roboticsis a San Francisco-based company that designs and deploys AI-enabled robotics to help multi-product food manufacturers flexibly automate manufacturing processes, overcome labor challenges and increase production.
