David Jahn, sales director at Brillopak explains why automation should not be feared and that proper planning can prevent myriad issues, while delivering significant performance increases.
Your investment in end-of-line automation in food packing is no longer a medium-term aspiration, it is now a short-term business imperative. And with an optimum combination of class-leading technology and a partner that understands every facet of the evolutionary process, you can quickly reap the throughput rewards and avoid all the planning, architectural and logistical pitfalls.
This push to automate is being driven by your end users; the proliferation of digital supply chains, which thrive on end-to-end operational data; labour market shortages, evolution and migration; and efficiency, agility & speed of response becoming ever-more essential metrics for your customers.
But we know that deploying automation is a big step as it can be very different to manual operations. There is also an element of perceived risk. Indeed, we’ve heard from many food processors and packers who are not fully utilising their new automation equipment, often for simple reasons that were overlooked at the planning stage. These can include simply not asking “why are we automating?”, a failure to create forward-looking requirements plans, engineers and operators being reluctant to use more complex technology, failure to consider future business when planning and failure to involve all stakeholders.
To prevent these issues, we highly recommend you partner with a manufacturer that can act as an expert guide, as you prepare and transition into automation – from planning through design, deployment, evaluation and enhancement, and onto carefully phased and fully scaled operations. There’s a lot to consider.