Challenges Facing Robotics Integrations

The food processing industry is rapidly embracing and adopting robotics to help them overcome labor shortages, protect their teams and enhance efficiencies.

At this point, robotics can be designed and programmed to perform virtually any food processing tasks. They have the reach, can hit the right speeds and lift the weights necessary to meet processors’ needs and enhance them. They are especially good at taking over manual, repetitive processes, allowing organizations to move their team members to more productive areas, or even to just space them out farther.

But, there are robotics integration challenges that some processors might face. Let’s take a look at some of the main ones.

 

Return On Investment (ROI)

When considering a capital investment, processors will always look closely at their ROI for the project. Robotics have become widely adopted, increasing their demand and enticing other companies to start producing solutions for the food processing industry. Despite that, it can be expensive to integrate robotics.

Integrations are made even more expensive by the current high interest rates.

All of this is also taking place at a time when consumers are scaling back their meat purchases.

This all means that it could take longer for the processor to get their payback on the solution.

That delayed ROI would be longer if the planned integration is only helping the organization relocate a few or less team members. This is even more true if the integration is complex, resulting in more engineering time and comprising multiple components, e.g., robot arm, special EOAT, cameras.

 

Space & Speed

Robotics can take over certain processes, helping processors space their team members out farther.

But robots are often very large machines. Depending on the setup, they could be sitting on a large base and equipped with a long arm. In addition, while humans may be able to work in a small space where they don’t have to extend much, robots can require more room to perform their function. This is especially true for more complex systems.

In a processing facility with a small footprint, the robot might not have the room it needs, or it might need so much room that it’s more displacing team members than taking over their tasks. In that case, the ROI might not be worth the investment.

 

End of Arm Tooling

Robots really like their functions and the product they’re handling to be consistent.

Food is not all the same. This can cause robotics to have a more difficult time identifying things and making decisions. Recently, artificial intelligence (AI) cameras have gotten to the point where that is not as much of an issue. But, unless it’s on the secondary processing side, the robot will likely have to pick up the different shapes.

This is where the end of arm tooling (EOAT) comes in. In some instances, like with products in very varied shapes/sizes or with products that are hard to grip and/or maneuver, the EOAT tooling will be custom made, raising the overall solution’s price even more.

 

Inspections

On the primary processing side, almost every processor has an inspection process that involves a human evaluating or manipulating the product.

Some examples would be:

• Checking a T-bone to make sure it has the right amount of fat
• Inspecting fruits and vegetables for bruises or other bad spots
• Grading chicken pieces

Sometimes, the team member also manipulates the product.

Examples include:

• Realigning a pork loin before it goes into a slicing
• Checking a bag for air leaks/damages

 

Often, those inspection/manipulation decisions must be made in a small space and at fast speeds.

In both cases, the robotic inspection would include a robot arm, EOAT and AI camera, at the least. While the team member could quickly inspect, manipulate and make a decision in a short time and small space, the robot might require more time and more space.

Also, AI cameras often require strict parameters when making decisions. If a product doesn’t fall into those parameters, the robot would automatically reject it, often resulting in a team member having to inspect it again. It can be worked around with a more complex system.

 

At EnSight Solutions, we have a team dedicated to helping food processors integrate automation into their facilities. In addition to primary and secondary processing solutions, we can help organizations move things via autonomous guided vehicles (AGVs).

Not sure whether robotics will work for your facility and processes? Our automation team can advise you on places and instances where robotics could improve your processes.

If you’re interested in learning more about how we can automate your processes, please contact our sales consultants.