No question about it, sugar plants consume vast amounts of electricity, and with a lot of aging equipment, there’s no doubt that several motors and the mechanical systems they drive are probably consuming more power than they should—due to worn bearings and a general lack of maintenance. In many instances, motors are probably not using variable speed drives, and large inrush currents place a big demand on electrical utilities.
Is a variable speed drive (VSD) air compressor the best solution for applications where demand fluctuates? It’s important to realize that not all variable speed drive compressors are the same.
It also affords processors the ability to experiment with changes in batches or creating entirely new products, often with simply re-configuring lines.
Today, consumers expect to choose from a wide choice of brands and products—not just from the “center” of the store, but fresh and organic products from the periphery of the store. Sometimes new products are short lived and are designed to be that way—because consumers’ choices turn on a dime. Automation can help processors turn products around faster by increasing production.
In the engineering world, it has often been said that you can’t inspect quality into a product. Rather, you design and build quality into a product and then inspect to make sure you are delivering what you promise.
While it’s often been said that the shoemaker has no shoes for his own children, sometimes a similar thing can happen with a software company. Only in this case, InfinityQS, a supplier of data-driven enterprise quality management software, had an aging on-premises IT system, all crammed in together in the traditional “server room.”
When I was an electrical engineer building emergency wireless communications networks, I learned about the importance of having backups—sometimes the hard way, with a 3 a.m. phone call reporting a system is down and the backup system didn’t kick in.
Some things actually get better with age as creative engineering improves performance, decreases energy usage and makes a device more efficient and better able to handle a new range of food or beverage products.
FE spoke with a few experts from the A&E/C community to get a wide-angle view of some of the key issues affecting food processors and their supply chains.
Loftware’s interview with Harvard Business School Professor Willi Shih points out weak links in the supply chain—weak links that should have been seen sooner
Loftware President and CEO Robert O’Connor spoke with Harvard Business School Professor Willi Shih in a live on-line Webinar entitled “COVID-19, Labeling, and Supply Chain Continuity,” to look at some lessons learned in the supply chain during the COVID-19 outbreak, which, of course, isn’t over yet.