Wayne Labs

Wayne Labs has more than 30 years of editorial experience in industrial automation. He served as senior technical editor for I&CS/Control Solutions magazine for 18 years where he covered software, control system hardware and sensors/transmitters. Labs ran his own consulting business and contributed feature articles to Electronic Design, Control, Control Design, Industrial Networking and Food Engineering magazines. Before joining Food Engineering, he served as a senior technical editor for Omega Engineering Inc. Labs also worked in wireless systems and served as a field engineer for GE’s Mobile Communications Division and as a systems engineer for Bucks County Emergency Services. In addition to writing technical feature articles, Wayne covers FE’s Engineering R&D section.

VSD Air Compressors

Choose wisely when considering a variable speed drive, oil-free compressor

The compressor, motor and drive electronics must work together as a single unit to be efficient and have a long life

Wayne Labs

July 9, 2020

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.

Automation

Modularity brings flexibility in automating production lines

It also affords processors the ability to experiment with changes in batches or creating entirely new products, often with simply re-configuring lines.

Wayne Labs

July 9, 2020

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.

Inspection Systems

Some pointers on choosing metal detection systems to keep food safe from adulteration

While meeting FDA, SQF, CFIA and BRC requirements is important, regulatory agencies are no longer judge and jury in this world of social media

Wayne Labs

July 6, 2020

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.

IT systems and COVID-19

Quality management software supplier updates IT system just in time for COVID-19

When a series of power outages caused systemic IT failure, moving to the cloud provided a solution and let the staff work from home or anywhere

Wayne Labs

June 23, 2020

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.”

Supply chains

What the COVID-19 pandemic can teach us about the internet

Supply chains used to survive without the internet, but could they now?

Wayne Labs

June 19, 2020

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.

Engineering R&D

Heat exchangers get better with age

Wayne Labs

June 10, 2020

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.

Manufacturing News

The ongoing impact of COVID-19 on the food industry and its supply chains

Wayne Labs

June 8, 2020

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.

Willy Shih, Professor of Management Practice in Business Administration at the Harvard Business School

COVID-19 and the supply chain

COVID-19’s effect on the supply chain could have been lessened

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

Wayne Labs

June 4, 2020

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.

Plant Construction Survey

Food Engineering’s 43rd Annual Plant Construction Survey

COVID-19 overshadows project planning and construction while decreasing already short labor supplies

Wayne Labs

June 3, 2020

Construction remains steady in the food and beverage industry, but the full effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are not yet known.

FE 2020 Annual Plant Construction Survey

2020 Annual Plant Construction Survey: Part 2

The quest for the ideal food manufacturing site

Architectural and engineering design/build firms explain the site-related, key issues facing processors as they plan to renovate or build a new facility

Wayne Labs

June 3, 2020

While we've looked at the key issues - including COVID-19 - facing food processors and A&E/Cs this year in FE's 2020 Annual Plant Construction Survey, there's a lot more to discuss.

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.