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Communication is the key for a smart factory

25 August 2023

Mathew Simpson discusses some of the key elements of a smart food factory.

Inside the smart food factory, the arrival of digital technology is transforming operations.

Industrial vision is one example of the benefits of Industry 4.0 – automating and making consistent the many assessments currently done by human operators who can get tired and bored of such repetitive tasks. 

Industrial vision can detect and identify light and shade, colour and texture, missing or unwanted items, product quantities and imperfections. However, if it cannot communicate and share its information with the next machine, there is only limited benefit (in recording what it saw). The big gains come from joining the device to the line so that items can be automatically steered to where they need to go – and those which have not made the grade rejected. 

Integration is at the very heart of the smart food factory. To be completely effective – and achieve the streamlined and efficient production process that will help deliver both satisfied customers and an improved bottom line – several key elements must come together. These are sensing, digitalisation, communication, joining up machines and processes, and automation.

Step one
Sensing – of which industrial vision is a part – is step one. Sensor technology has evolved from being a high-cost manual device to a low-cost automated device which means factories can install a lot more of them. 

There are many sensors inside the smart food factory – thermometers, counters, gauges, cameras, and humidity detectors – and they are automated. Furthermore, their output is digital which enables the information they gather to be much more quickly analysed and acted upon. One CSB meat processor customer, for example is using sensor data to calculate the expected sales of different items, which can then be incorporated into cutting planning.

Digitalising the output of the sensors also makes it easier for them to communicate automatically with other devices or systems, including business management or ERP software. And not just within the factory but externally to webshops or retail outlets, and third-party and logistics systems.

This high level of communication enables machines in the production line and the data they collect to be joined up. This leads to greater automation overall. Goods receiving, production planning and control, packaging and labelling, stock placement and removal, picking, loading and dispatch, can all be controlled by software, with little or no human intervention.

Is this another example of Artificial Intelligence (AI) taking over? Yes, in the sense that in the smart food factory many of the tiring, repetitive and unloved tasks have been removed. But also no, because the systems still need skilled personnel to oversee operations and ensure they continue to work effectively. 

The phrase ‘work smarter, not harder’ may be overused – it was originated in the 1930s by Allen F. Morgenstern, an industrial engineer and the creator of the work simplification programme. Nevertheless, digitalisation represents a giant leap forward for working smarter - and the smart food factory will help food processors survive and prosper in today’s fast-paced, digital world. 

Mathew Simpson is Sales Manager, UK and Ireland, CSB-System.


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