Source: Tom Johnston, MEATINGPLACE, 11/3/11
 

The world of process automation is a place where a company presently can slice 10-foot turkey logs to maximize yields and in the future might debone a broiler before evisceration to maximize food safety.
Experts convened here Thursday at the Process Expo provided a today-and-tomorrow view of process automation’s capabilities in the U.S. meat processing industry in a discussion hosted by Meatingplace. The talk posed whether operators can use automation technologies to simultaneously make better products at higher speeds and at lower costs.

According to David Gustovich, founder and president of Wexford, Pa.-based IQity Solutions; Gary McMurray, chief research engineer for the Georgia Tech Research Institute’s Food Processing Technology Division; and Lee Johnson, vice president of technical services for West Liberty Foods, the answer is “not yet,” but processors who take a holistic approach to automation ultimately will reap the most rewards.

For Johnson, robotics solved West Liberty’s problem of physically maneuvering the 10-foot turkey logs the company decided to make, a job humans can’t efficiently or safely perform. But he told attendees the company wouldn’t have enjoyed the full benefits of increased yields and throughput without taking into account the entire process, such as the consequential customizations it would have to make downstream (bigger, bigger, bigger) to accommodate those huge hunks of turkey. It helped that West Liberty was building new facilities around that new processing line, which exemplifies another of the many considerations — adequate infrastructure — processors need to address before making the investment.
The 10-foot logs set in motion an ascending chain of dollar signs, the most arresting consideration for any business, but Johnson told Meatingplace after the presentation that return on investment came pretty quickly, especially given the increase in yields. “I mean I [used to have] two logs with two ends,” he said. “Now I’ve got one log with two ends.”

The future
What’s better for West Liberty Foods is what’s better for the entire industry, and Georgia Tech’s McMurray said future automation applications will help the industry do a better job of everything from increased yields to safer products. But first the industry must overcome some basic challenges, such as the lack of uniformity of the natural products it manufactures.

Where automation has been integrated more smoothly and broadly in industries that make less variable products, such as automobiles and electronics, the food production system has to find a way around the variability of, say, broiler carcasses and other challenges, such as the ability of automated machinery to withstand plant wash downs. “The key is you have to have the technology to do this,” he said. “We’re starting to see companies start to respond.”

Georgia Tech is toying with “intelligent cutting” to perform the shoulder cut, for example, in poultry processing. This will require melding several disparate technologies — vision systems and high-speed force control, for example — to ultimately see and make decisions like a human, only faster and better. “Is that ready?” he said. “No. Are the suppliers able to deliver that? Not yet. But it points to the future. The future is a sensor-controlled robot.”

Developing sensor technology that can capture the necessary information is the next big factor, McMurray said, and beyond that it will be integrating information collected at different points in the process to inform future processing methods at every step. Robotics used to debone birds before evisceration, for example, could greatly enhance food safety, he said.

Data connectivity
Gustovich said companies in the industry today are using as many as 20 disparate technologies to manage their businesses from payroll to shipping, but they don’t have the tools to leverage all that information. Companies traditionally have invested in tackling individual problems, creating a discontinuity of data, he said.

Technology manufacturers currently are building into their equipment a lot of data connectivity with user interfaces, a foundation for when processors renew their equipment and want to be able to manage operations remotely. In order to take that next step, however, they’ll need to invest in technologies that can connect the dots throughout the value chain so they can make actionable, real-time decisions — akin to managing through a “windshield” rather than a “rear-view mirror” — that impact their bottom line, Gustovich said.

Johnson and McMurray said the type of data companies want will be a factor in spending decisions. Where the industry could get the most bang for its buck right now is in mechanisms that can capture and communicate information about specific product attributes, such as defects, so that processors can make immediate corrections.

“There’s still a long way to go to be able to capture the true value [of process automation],” McMurray said.

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