Items Tagged with 'workforce'

Blending advanced automation with purposeful design, this year’s Plant of the Year reflects how food manufacturers are engineering smarter, more efficient operations to meet evolving industry demands.

In past years, customers have focused more on automation as part of broader sustainability or throughput goals. Now, the focus has shifted slightly, with more emphasis on how many operators can be reassigned or how much support a system will require post-install.

Operator safety is becoming a critical lever for performance in food and beverage manufacturing. As workforce challenges intensify, processors are investing in automation, advanced HMI design and safer equipment to improve both retention and productivity.

In a recent survey, Weavix found manufacturing workers are satisfied with their communication strategies but there’s still room for improvement.

The company, which filed a WARN Act notice with the state on Oct. 31, said the layoffs were to occur during a two-week period starting Jan. 8.

The workforce reduction is set to begin at the end of February, according to a WARN Notice filed with the state of Georgia on Dec. 30.

Since Kellanova began the partnership in 2021, it has hired 50 employees into its electrical and instrumentation technician training program, which empowers current Kellanova employees, as well as Jackson residents looking to join the manufacturing industry.

The research involved surveying food equipment manufacturing companies to identify pressing workforce challenges and document solutions for attracting, training and retaining skilled talent.

The company reports it has implemented a voluntary early retirement program for a portion of its non-plant workforce, in addition to closing open roles and reducing certain positions across its office-based workforce.

The plan is estimated to result in the reduction of approximately 9% of the company’s Americas business salaried workforce.