INDUSTRY FOCUS FOOD & BEVERAGE BREXIT AND THE ROBOT REVOLUTION
safer and more rewarding roles. Far from replacing all human employees, robots can help increase staff retention levels. The use of robots can also help to reduce
contamination, which in turn helps to extend a product’s shelf life. A lot of food manufacturers have been running flow wrappers for years, but use staff to manually load them. Ilapak has introduced robots to stack products and organise them in batches of two, three or four, then use a multi-belt system to feed them into the machine. Within that process servo–drive belts can be programmed to split the products up into exactly what is required. Robots can also be used after flow wrapping to stack and pack a product before placing the packs into retail trays. With contamination such a concern for
Tony McDonald, sales and marketing director, Ilapak UK, discusses the impact of Brexit, and says for those food companies that invest in automation and robotics it will be an opportunity, not a threat
W
hile the use of robotics and automation in the UK food and drink
industry has been steadily growing over the past decade, Britain is still lagging behind many of its international counterparts. As the lowest G7 nation, UK sits 22nd in the world robot league table with just 71 robots per 10,000 workers, behind nations such as Slovenia (137), Sweden (223), and South Korea (631)1
.
This could be about to change, however, as an unlikely source is set to herald a robot revolution in food production… One of the main barriers to greater
uptake of automation, particularly amongst SMEs, is the cost of unskilled labour versus investment in robotics technology. Thanks to the EU’s free movement of workers, Britain’s food and drink industry has benefitted from cheap labour for many years – in fact, it employs the highest share of EU migrant workers (30 per cent)2
compared with any other
UK sector, employing around one fifth of the two million EU nationals working in Britain. This figure is at its highest on fruit and vegetable farms, where 99 per cent of workers come from Eastern Europe3 But Brexit is set to change the labour
.
landscape in just a few short years. The Food and Drink Federation (FDF) reported that 47 per cent of companies in Britain’s food supply chain said their EU workers were considering their future as a direct result of the Brexit vote. On farms the impact is starker still – according to the National Farmers’ Union, in the crucial harvest month of September 2017, 29 per
26 DECEMBER/JANUARY 2019 | PROCESS & CONTROL
cent of roles went unfilled, the first shortfall since records began in 2014. Brexit, combined with a skills shortage
brought about an ageing domestic workforce and a lack of British young people coming into the industry – not to mention the 2020 deadline for the new National Minimum Wage – is giving the UK’s food and drink businesses a staffing dilemma. Faced with an impending lack of cheap labour, many are turning to robots to fill the gap.
THE PERFECT EMPLOYEE The deployment of robotics technology – and investment in plant automation – can revolutionise how food factories operate, increasing efficiency in all areas of the production process. Producing more items at a faster rate and at a higher level of quality, robots, in place of humans, get the job done. Not only that, a robot will never get sick, take a holiday, need a break, or even get bored. And it can cope with extreme temperatures, as well as unsafe or unsanitary working conditions. Using automation for repetitive or dangerous tasks protects the workforce, so employees can be upskilled and take on
Far from replacing all human employees, robots can help increase staff retention levels
food producers, cleanliness and hygiene is a key driver in any operation. One automated process which has huge potential in maintaining high levels of cleanliness is gas flushing. This procedure involves the replacement of oxygen with carbon dioxide and nitrogen to help keep products free from contamination and fresher for longer. Gas flushing extends the shelf life of some products from one week to as long as six months, reducing both operational and consumer waste. For some food producers, such as craft
Tony McDonald says: ‘In today’s increasingly connected digital world, the biggest trend in robots and automation is undoubtedly Industry 4.0. In 2012, there were 5.5 billion connected devices... today there are 50 billion. Proof, if it were needed, of the power of the Internet of Things’
1International Federation of Robotics 2
annual Food and Drink 150 report 3
Farmers’ Union (NFU)
OC&C’s 29th National
bakeries or breweries, the lack of automation is part of their USP. But for the vast majority, a system which can produce thousands of identical, high quality items each hour not only cuts down labour and energy costs, it also increases brand reputation and can provide the ability to flex at short notice as consumer demand requires. When assessing a client’s suitability for automation and conducting a cost-benefit analysis, we consider each project on its individual needs. If a company has two or three people running the packing operations during the night using L Sealers, we look at the number of units being produced. If the company is running off 5,000 products a day, it makes better commercial sense to introduce a system such as ILAPAK’s Smart HFFS entry level flow wrapping system. For higher value products, it may be cost effective to switch to automation at 3,000 units a day. As the UK’s largest manufacturing
sector, contributing £28.8bn to the UK’s GDP, the food and drink industry is likely to be hit hard by Brexit. But perhaps the unsettled few years ahead can be tempered by investment in reliable, efficient robotic technology that can help to increase productivity and profits. For investors in automation, Brexit is not a threat – it’s an opportunity.
Ilapak
www.ilapak.co.uk
/ PROCESS&CONTROL
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