Automation

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The pursuit of improved operational margins is difficult, as CPG companies face over 20% in cost losses due to inefficiencies. Many are implementing advanced sensors and contextual data analysis to enhance maintenance and develop AI-driven strategies in manufacturing.

For food and beverage manufacturers, AI readiness begins with gaining visibility into the plant that exists today, identifying the risks and constraints that matter most, and establishing a practical roadmap for modernization.

Food and beverage manufacturers encounter significant challenges beyond simply delivering products, including tightening regulations, rising costs, and labor shortages. Despite these obstacles, they continue to prioritize investments in food safety, traceability, automation, and sustainability to enhance operational efficiency.

FOOD ENGINEERING recently spoke to Scott Robison, GreenSeed’s senior vice president of sales and business development, about the company’s mission, its partnership with R.A. Jones and its future plans.

In addition to artificial intelligence (AI), big data and sustainability concerns, food industry professionals taking part in PMMI's research emphasized health-driven product shifts, ongoing workforce constraints and heightened sanitation scrutiny.

Just like a generic ERP in food manufacturing will never function as efficiently as a purpose-built ERP, the same holds true for AI.

Plants often have aging equipment that works fine, and it may have sensors, but in many cases that data never connects with data from other siloed processes. Why not connect all the data together with intelligent networks and use AI to get a better understanding of the whole process?

As automation has become increasingly sophisticated, reusable plastic packaging has evolved alongside it. Rather than viewing packaging simply as something that transports products from point A to point B, manufacturers can view it as an integral part of the automated system.

Manufacturers are expanding capacity and modernizing operations amid growing project complexity, tighter schedules and increasing technology demands. Integrated project delivery brings engineering, procurement and construction teams together from the outset, helping improve collaboration, reduce risk and create greater certainty around cost, schedule and facility performance.

For Pearl Crop, a processor of nuts and seeds based in California, seasonal labor pressures prompted a search for a more flexible automation strategy, ultimately leading the company to explore a robot rental model rather than a traditional capital equipment purchase.