Feature Food & Beverage Food industry embraces automation


As food prices have risen during the past decade, incomes have fallen. Add to this the fact that there has been recent seasonal shortages and that experts are predicting worldwide food shortages by 2020, then it is clear that the food industry needs to think hard about the future. Mitsubishi Electric explain


peaking at a recent food and bever- age conference hosted by Mitsubishi Electric, Chris Buxton CEO of the Processing & Packaging Machinery Association (PPMA), said, “The UK food industry spends £1bn per year on research and development. This produced 8,500 new products last year and contributed to the 16% drop in carbon dioxide emissions since 1999. Quite a track record.”


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Buxton noted that over 85% of his members already supply to the food industry, and that many food processors are looking at increasing their level of automation due to a desire to reduce wastage, a skills shortage, increasing costs, hygiene, food safety, security and environmental considerations. Expressing all this from the perspec- tive of an automation engineer, the needs are to reduce costs and increase yields, improve ingredient handling, enhance traceability and increase util- isation of plant and machinery, space, energy and staff.


“There is a constant drive for improvements in food processing, often fuelled by the demands of the major retail chains,” said Buxton. “The food manufacturers have already done wonders with automation and lean manufacturing, and increasingly they are discovering a new weapon in their armoury - robots.”


This is due to the fact that many of the old robot myths are evaporating fast i.e. that they are expensive, unreliable, com- plicated and put people out of work. A recent international study under- taken by the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), calculates that on average a robot installation creates two to three jobs and that the alterna- tive to a robot is often outsourcing work to an overseas supplier.


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Above: Mitsubishi’s L-Series Datalogger


Buxton continued, “Robots have some attributes that are particularly well suited to the food industry. They are very flexible and can be pro- grammed to switch from one produc- tion task to another. And they don’t breathe pathogens into the workplace, thus lengthening product shelf life. “They can also have a very delicate touch, reducing product damage. One of my members, for instance, has recently built a robot for packing poppadoms and thus reduced breakages to virtually nil - something that human operators have never been able to achieve.”


In control of control


Automated food processing plants inevitably reach a point where they need modernising, a subject consid- ered by Adrian Caton of Niscam. The first observation of his presentation at the food and beverage conference was that most machinery has a life expectancy that is far greater than its associated control system. “Often the control system is still operating well but newer technology with greater capabilities come along and open up the option for significant increases in productivity - hence the desire to upgrade,” explained Caton. “The problem is that after a time a plant can be using several different gen- erations of control hardware and soft- ware. The management of this can quickly become very difficult. You need to keep an increasing number of spares, several sets of programming tools, main- tain expertise on aging systems and keep accurate records of everything.” He noted that this sort of system evolution is inevitable. A good plant engineer will understand this and have management procedures in place to cope. It is a good idea to do regular site audits, having an inventory of all hardware and software (including spares), reassessing risks and emer- gency procedures and prioritising future actions.


“It is inevitable that automation sys- tems will develop in-situ,” he con- cluded. “So you have to set up proper systems to manage them.”


Putting data to work


Automated production systems work best when the OEE (overall equipment effectiveness) is well managed. This


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involves two steps - collecting data from all around the plant and analysing it to produce clear, concise reports. David Bean, speaking to the confer- ence on behalf of Mitsubishi Electric, explained that production efficiency looks at many different aspects of a machine, line or process but is essen- tially the need to minimise down- time, increase quality, reduce scrap or rework and maximise availability. OEE not only indicates how efficiently a plant is running, it also looks at trends to predict future issues.


“Only with improved, time stamped data, continuously collected, can production management be statis- tically analysed so that machine availability and product quality can be improved,” he said.


On a single machine, problems can be quickly identified and rectified. Logging and monitoring fault codes and error messages will highlight recurring prob- lems and enable appropriate actions to be taken. Trends in production toler- ances can be monitored and corrections made before they impact detrimentally on product quality.


“The benefits of effective data log- ging quickly ripple through from improvements on a single line or cell to significant enhancements or refine- ments to the wider facility.” Another function of OEE data log- ging is that it provides, almost as a by- product, perfect product tractability data - an absolute requirement in modern food operations.


Dataloggers used to be separate pieces of equipment that had to be bought, installed and maintained. Nowadays they are a function within a modern PLC, so are an integral part of the control system. Indeed, some PLCs are able to process data and produce local reports, with the facili- ties to store this data to an SD memory card and/or communicate it to other parts of the control system. Bean concluded, “There is a saying in control engineering - ‘If you are not measuring it, you are not control- ling it’. Now we can add that with integral dataloggers - measuring is a piece of cake.”


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