How can automation and digitalisation help food and beverage producers tackle their current challenges?

Sean Sims is the new Vice President of Tetra Pak Automation & Digitalisation (A&D) solutions. Over his 30-year automation career, he has seen huge developments in the field. We asked him to share his thoughts on the problems producers are currently facing and how A&D from Tetra Pak can help resolve them.

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What are food and beverage producers most concerned about right now?

–   Three things immediately to spring to mind. The first is rising costs, which include the costs of energy, water, labour, raw ingredients and even capital. Manufacturers are seeing their profitability eroded as a result. The second major issue is the ongoing sustainability responsibilities and legislation impacting our customers’ markets. While the majority of producers are committed to adapting in order to meet their targets and remain legally compliant, not everyone has a practical implementation plan yet. Another major concern our customers have at the moment is the lack of skilled workers. This was exacerbated by the pandemic when many people took stock of their lives and reconsidered their futures. Some retrained and others were in a position to retire. I think people also generally became more open to experimenting with their careers and switching jobs more often. Today’s food and beverage producers are putting a lot of thought into how to navigate these new dynamics.

Can A&D help close these gaps?

–   Yes. Quite simply, leveraging our A&D solutions is the lowest cost, most scalable way to address all these challenges. The technology has already been proven in many other industry sectors so now it’s the turn of the food and beverage industry to realise the benefits. 

Can you explain how A&D helps manufacturers gain control over costs?

–   It’s about increasing business agility while reducing variability, which may seem a little contradictory at first glance. To explain: A&D solutions allow producers to identify and execute changes in their manufacturing plans quickly and cost effectively. This means they can take advantage of every cost reduction opportunity — from reducing energy consumption to improving quality or managing inventory better. A&D allows all these adjustments to be made reliably on the fly, as the opportunities emerge in a very dynamic market.

–   However, with greater agility also comes greater complexity, which manufacturers typically seek to avoid. Conquering complexity is all about reducing variability, and the best way to do that is to use equipment and processes that are guaranteed to do the same job the same way every time. This is where automation comes in. Highly automated production lines deliver reliable, repeatable results and require very little operator intervention. They create a robust foundation for producers to adjust manufacturing plans, safe in the knowledge that they will get a predictable, positive result.

–   The addition of digitalisation on top of this robust automation allows producers to collect and analyse all the relevant production data — such as key process variables, ingredients used, which operator was on duty, maintenance phase of the equipment and so on. Armed with a large set of relevant, contextualised data, producers can start to triangulate trends with results and understand exactly which operating model gives the best outcome with the fewest deviations. Based on that, they can initiate the next round of process enhancements, leading to further cost optimisation opportunities. And so, the cycle continues.

Can you explain how A&D helps manufacturers handle sustainability responsibilities and legislation?

–   Just as A&D helps producers manage costs, so it supports their sustainability responsibilities. Inline analytics oversee the use of energy, water and raw ingredients in manufacturing operations. This gives producers the visibility they need to refine their operational strategies and make more efficient use of valuable resources, while eliminating waste.

–   A&D also provides the most repeatable, auditable way of ensuring compliance to legislation. Producers can leverage our embedded technology to measure and monitor key parameters of their operations, and to create a time-series based, non-editable, automated record. This reliable audit trail can then be used internally as well as by government oversight bodies to monitor and manage sustainability commitments.

Can you explain how A&D helps manufacturers address the skills gap?

–   First, we eliminate operator work wherever possible. The A&D systems we build connect to the customers’ business requirements directly. So when a producer loads a manufacturing request for a product, or a specific flavour of that product, in a specific package, the digital connection sets up the entire plan automatically from the business systems right down to the factory floor. It then orchestrates the automation system to ensure the equipment is correctly set up for this new plan. It’s quick and easy. The impact of being able to do this over and over, multiple times a week (or even a day) with a short change-over time, without compromising on quality or throughput, is a huge win for manufacturers.

–   Second, A&D support tools help operators execute their tasks more effectively, guiding them to take the right steps at the right time. At one end of the spectrum, this may take the form of simple screen prompts to guide operators through a manual process step-by-step; at the other, it may involve sophisticated simulation tools that allow operators to test the impact of a decision in a virtual world before committing to it in the real world. This keeps less experienced operators within the right operating envelopes and accelerates their learning by presenting them with best-in-class operating practices and recommendations. Ultimately, it means less qualified, less experienced staff can handle the same span of control, and even expand it over time.

–   It’s also important to remember that a modern, automated and digitalised factory is a much more attractive workplace (compared to a traditional factory environment) for young tech-savvy employees coming into the workforce. Routine, repetitive tasks are managed by the A&D systems, leaving the more value-adding tasks to be driven by operational staff using a set of intuitive and efficient tools. We have seen how this type of digitised environment helps attract new talent. And of course, the application of innovative technologies in the workplace also helps maintain their interest over time, which improves retention of an increasingly effective workforce.

Can you briefly summarise the problems and solutions described above?

–   I would say our customers are facing quite a conundrum!  They’re wondering how to handle cost pressures and produce more sustainably with fewer skilled people. How do you square that circle? Fortunately, our A&D solutions make it relatively quick and easy to find optimisation opportunities in multiple areas of manufacturing. We help our customers succeed by integrating their equipment, optimising their end-to-end operations in line with their key business drivers, and then connecting them to industry and equipment expertise to make sure they get the very best out of their factory – 24/7/365.

How would you advise producers to get started?

–   I would urge them to get in touch with us and have our experts put together a customised road map for their A&D journey. Realistically, there’s no need to try to change everything overnight, but similarly there’s no need to hesitate. Our modular, scalable A&D offer is designed to enable stepwise implementation. This is the future of manufacturing, and we fully support customers who wish to get on board, from the smallest producer to the largest multi-national enterprise. No matter what your starting point is, we support your A&D transformation… at your own pace.

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