Total automation may be an ideal for most food processors, but it can be difficult to determine how to connect every system in a food plant — or if they should even be connected at all. To optimize ROI, it’s important to learn which areas of your food processing facility are best suited for automation. Below are five tips for improving your plant’s automation capabilities. Leverage existing connected automation systems — Many systems are well-integrated on a common network and platform, but they don’t do much good if they aren’t fully integrated. Consider a brewery that had a manual data system in place that was generating a great deal of useful data. Because its systems weren’t integrated it couldn’t put that data into context, making it relatively useless. Once the brewery installed a manufacturing execution system (MES), its packaging efficiency increased by 30 percent. Implement overarching integration — On the packaging side of food processing plants, I often notice that processors have yet to fully implement integration across the number of individual components and machines that must run to have a fully functional packaging line. Often times, when one piece of process equipment malfunctions, the entire system stops working. It’s important to tie all your equipment together in an overarching system so that the whole doesn’t suffer when one element stops working. Use software to connect processing and packaging equipment — When talking with food processors, I find there is a lack of plant floor connectivity between processing and packaging areas. Why? While the networking capability DOES exist, there’s no software in place to connect the equipment from each area. Considering space and labor are relatively inexpensive, the ROI on installing software like a material handling systems (MHS) can take up to 15 years, which is much longer than […]