Articles by Kevin T. Higgins

Given the importance of packaging in protecting and promoting products on store shelves, it is no surprise that food and beverage companies are investing more dollars in superior materials and advanced automation to deliver goods to market.

Continuous processes and CIP cycles are placing greater stress on pump components, forcing fabricators to take a closer look at super alloys and advanced thermoplastics.

When fish processors demanded a higher level of automation, an Icelandic firm assembled an in-house team to engineer an X-ray inspection system.

Besides focusing on process engineering, food engineers need to become product engineers who interact with other scientific disciplines to better understand food at the nano- and micro-scale level in order to fabricate more nutritious, flavorful and transportable products, argues José Miguel Aguilera.

Manufacturing is as much about people as machinery, and when both groups represent different cultures and languages, harmonious production can be a challenge. In the short history of Nong Shim Foods Inc., multi-cultural machines and humans are beginning to mesh.

Change is constant, and North American food manufacturers are determined to make sure that the performance in their plants is better tomorrow than it is today. That is one of the key findings in this year's State of Food Manufacturing Study, a survey measuring the pulse of the industry, first undertaken by Food Engineering in 1980. The concern with continuous improvement is virtually universal, based on responses to a new question on how survey respondents' organizations are addressing this need. Given a list of eight options, none of the 186 food professionals who answered the question selected, "No program in place."

Machine vision is an essential element of JBT FoodTech’s water-jet portioning machines, and the analytical capabilities of optimized value sorting can help processors achieve even higher portioning profits.

Fully cooked bacon has been one of the few applications for microwave technology in the food industry.
That's changing, and fast.

Identifying your risk is the first step in the decision to invest in an automated record-keeping system.

When it comes to food safety, risk management, not ROI, is the metric of choice for America's leading food brands when evaluating track and trace systems.

Creativity and brainstorming are synonymous with innovation in many people's minds. Engineers and manufacturing professionals have a different view: innovation is linked with risk, and minimizing the effects of risk is the key to successful innovation.