Robotics in food manufacturing: Benefits & Developments

Industrial and collaborative robots in the food industry are increasingly being deployed in primary processing and secondary processing applications. Robotic automation has pervaded an incredibly diverse range of industries all over the globe - the food processing industry is one of the final frontiers of robotic automation. Both industrial and collaborative robots can be used throughout the entire food supply chain. Historically though, food processing has been the most difficult to automate. But recent technological advances are overcoming these obstacles.

Food manufacturing has grown into rather complex processes involving preparing, cooking, sorting, packaging and palletizing. Industrial robots are increasingly being integrated in order to save time and space, as well as improving cleanliness and safety.

Food manufacturing robots are commonly used in the dispensing, feed placement, cutting, packaging or casing of food, pick and-placing products into containers, and sorting. Newer developments also allow for order picking, where an employee or customer is able to place an order electronically, and the food robot automatically fills that specific order. For the packaging consistency of food items, where speed, or high levels of repetition are concerned, the food robots almost always win over humans in terms of efficiency. Robots are equipped with intelligent vision systems allowing the very specific placement of products on a belt to be done with incredible accuracy. Vision system robots are also utilized in sorting by color, shape or size.

Robots have changed manufacturing in almost every industrial sector and have increased efficiency and product consistency. The implementation of robotics and automation in the food sector offers great potential for improved safety, quality and profitability by optimizing process monitoring and control. Robotics and automation provides a comprehensive overview of current and emerging technologies and their applications in different industry sectors. However, until recently, food manufacturing has been an exception to this trend. There are many reasons for this, but one of the most often cited is that, unlike most products, food products by their very nature differ significantly in consistency and shape. This presents a considerable challenge to automated processing procedures.