Digitalisation and sustainability can work hand-in-hand

05 December 2020

Food Processing spoke to Martin Leeming, CEO at secondary packaging company, TrakRap, about the growing significance of digital solutions when it comes to meeting sustainability goals.

Q: Do you find that your food industry customers are struggling to meet the changing eco-requirements from their customers (retailers)?

I think for food processors today the pressure comes from trying to meet sustainability standards whilst retaining efficiency and keeping down costs. Innovation has driven a high level of efficiency in food and beverage supply chains which has, in turn, driven down costs. As a result, food industry customers find themselves with the problem of how to introduce sustainability to a high volume/low margin business model. You can’t simply bolt it on, it has to be part of your DNA.

Q: How might data, through the use of greater digitalisation, help the food sector overcome some of these eco-innovation issues?

Digitalisation is going to have the biggest impact on sustainability because it is the most powerful way of addressing the objective to ‘reduce’. It will allow businesses to move away from Efficient Order Quantities (EOQs) which are largely there to paper over the cracks inherent in batch manufacturing, to a ‘power of one’ approach which will allow replenishment to be much more closely aligned to consumer demand, by SKU, by store and even by customer and transaction.

In theory, when EPOS registers a sale, the digital production machinery will take that data and then register and schedule replenishment in a batch size of one.”

Q: How might food processors start to digitalise their plants? Where are the ‘easy wins’ that can help them prove the technology?

One of the easy wins is in the upgrade of machinery. Digitalisation is empowering machinery manufacturers, such as ourselves to supply machinery bundled with an ongoing service offer which is linked to continuous improvement and ongoing maintenance. Using digital twin technology TrakRap’s machinery can help food processors to generate significant savings with predictive maintenance, simulation, energy efficiencies, increased throughput, improved logistics and other productivity benefits.

Q: Are there new financial models that can make the cost of new digital plant and equipment available to all?

We know that one of the many issues facing manufacturers today is the pressure being put on them on them to invest in, or upgrade to, next-generation production technology.

Our pay-per-use solution allows customers to pay for the equipment as they use it, financed by the savings the equipment provides both in lower material costs and operational efficiency gains. We have partnered with business-to-business financial solutions provider Siemens Financial Services (SFS) who pay us for the machinery before it is leased to the end customer, allowing them to spread the costs for the use of the system over the contractual period on a ‘pay-per-wrap’ basis. Because of our partnership with SFS, credit checks can now be processed more rapidly, and customers can be approved faster, while the ‘cost per use’ arrangement allows for a more accurate assessment of predicted savings for the end user. Without the need to purchase and take full ownership of the equipment, customers can also enjoy the benefits that using the system delivers without having to make any upfront capital expenditure.