Food and Beverage Manufacturing Top Stories
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Automation Series

Plant automation: Finding the right fit

Do what makes sense when installing automation in your facility, considering your budget and business goals. Understanding your application can help you fine-tune your equipment purchase.

Wayne Labs

November 19, 2015

While the trend for large manufacturers is to automate a new plant in its entirety, small and medium-sized food and beverage processors rarely have the funds to automate their plants, turning them into lights-out facilities. Even some tier-one processors may find areas in certain operations where it may not make sense to over-automate.

Green Series

Sustainable stars in food manufacturing

Five facilities are recognized for projects or programs that improve environmentally friendly efforts in food and beverage product manufacturing operations.

Debra Schug

November 12, 2015

On April 15 of this year, PMMI’s OpX Leadership Network presented the 2014 Sustainability Excellence in Manufacturing Awards (SEMA) during Food Engineering’s Food Automation & Manufacturing Conference in Clearwater Beach, FL.

Conveyors & Belting

Advantageous connections

Economic conditions, technological innovations and food safety mandates are changing the designs of conveyors and conveyor belting.

Jaan Koel

November 5, 2015

Conveyors and the belts that run on them, whether they are polymer, metal, hybrid or fiber, connect raw material reception, processing, packaging, palletizing, accumulation, final delivery and a myriad of other things.

How the FIT Development Program can keep technicians in the food and beverage industry

November 2, 2015

In this video, Gerald Lessard, Vice President & Chief Operating Officer of West Liberty Foods, discusses the major challenges of retaining technicians and how the FIT Program can help enhance plant productivity as well as keep technicians in the food and beverage industry throughout their careers.

Tech Update: Refrigeration & Freezing

The shift to natural cooling systems

Big changes are in store as many synthetic refrigerants still widely in use could be phased out next year by the EPA.

Debra Schug

October 20, 2015

Global warming is heavily debated in some circles, but governing bodies worldwide have declared it a reality, regardless of personal belief. For the past 30 years, regulatory agencies around the world have been working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, beginning with the 1987 Montreal Protocol, which was the first globally supported legislation to reduce ozone-depleting substances.

Food Safety

3-A SSI and EHEDG: Yin & yang

For the last 20 years, 3-A SSI and EHEDG have been working together to create a synergistic set of hygienic design, testing and implementation standards for process equipment.

Wayne Labs

October 13, 2015

No one ever said 3-A Sanitary Standards Inc. (3-A SSI) and the European Hygienic Engineering and Design Group (EHEDG) guidelines were supposed to be compatible or directly interchangeable in an “apples to apples” sense. In fact, they were conceived at different times, in different parts of the world and with different needs in mind.

S88 Builder shows all available information on the equipment

Ergonomics

Ergonomics: Creating a Culture of Safety

Machine guarding and other types of safeguards won’t protect plant workers if they circumvent them or place themselves in harm’s way.

Jeremy Gerrard

October 6, 2015

It shouldn’t be news that bad work designs can spell major problems for employers in terms of lost production time, workers’ compensation claims and injuries. All of these take deep cuts out of the bottom line. But poor design can hurt you where you least expect it such as in turnover rates, damage to your brand and bad rankings in best place to work surveys.

Automation Series

Solutions for improving yield are within reach

You’ve done the obvious, so where else can you look to squeeze out more product?

Wayne Labs

September 26, 2015

You add up the mass of raw materials your facility consumes each day, look at the products it’s made, and the numbers just don’t balance—until you look at skids of rework and a dumpster topped off with the day’s malformed products and/or damaged packages.

Green Series

Weighing all the options in wastewater treatment

Whether your plant is located in a drought-stricken area or where water is plentiful, building a wastewater treatment center on site may be cost effective for several reasons.

Wayne Labs

September 19, 2015

With the Sun Belt states experiencing serious droughts and the cost of processing wastewater escalating in many municipalities, conserving and reusing water at food and beverage processing facilities just makes plain business sense.

Tech Update

Tech update: Meeting great expectations

As consumers want a bigger variety of healthier choices that come in a plethora of sizes, manufacturers are offering fillers that are flexible while producing optimal output.

Debra Schug

September 14, 2015

Blame social media, changing tastes and needs or just the “Have it your way” attitude inspired by Burger King’s decades-long slogan, but modern consumers are demanding

On Demand Kelley Rodriguez, Editor in Chief of Refrigerated & Frozen Foods, will be joined in this 60-minute webinar by industry experts to help unpack the latest research.

On Demand Driven by climate goals, business risk, client interest, and resilience considerations, food and beverage companies are increasingly turning their attention to decarbonizing their production processes.