Production of products includes primary and secondary processing. In the primary processing, sorting, cleaning, mixing, and transportation take place. Secondary processing is the preparation of certain products: baking, boiling, cooling, etc. At both stages, food handler solutions can be applied to simplify and accelerate food production, as well as to standardize processes.
New opportunities in the food industry are opening up thanks to robotics. To imagine all the potential for changes and improvements in this field, it is worth looking at the solutions offered by the RIOS company: https://www.rios.ai/dion-food-handling.
Why is the food industry tending to automation?
Due to the exclusion of the human factor, it is possible to achieve a higher level of product safety, because they are less contaminated, pass all quality control measures, and minimize human contact with food. At the same time, the industry receives additional benefits:
- Reduction of production time;
- Reduction of the unit cost of finished products;
- Increasing volumes of finished products and additional opportunities for business scaling;
- Reducing the number of errors and downtime in production, because the robot does not get tired, unlike a person.
How are robotic solutions changing the industry?
Until now, food handling solutions were most often used precisely at the secondary stage of product processing, but currently, the experience of robotics at enterprises is growing. It is worth taking a closer look at the specific opportunities that arise as a result of the integration of a food handling robot into the production process.
Packaging.
The entire product packaging process can be accelerated and optimized thanks to automation. The robot picker can place sweets or other products in plastic containers, group small packages into larger boxes and even palletize them and place them on pallets for further transportation.
Delivery.
The delivery process using autonomous vehicles is represented by individual cases, but all of them turned out to be successful. A vivid example is pizza delivery by Domino’s Pizza. The company used drones that replaced couriers and eliminated the risks of delays in this process, because the drone does not stand in traffic jams and moves according to the given coordinates, rather than wandering around the city. Although the optimization of delivery has not yet become a trend, it is already having a positive effect on certain processes in the food industry.
Cooking.
The greatest opportunities for food handling systems exist in the process of preparing food, because there are not just industrial mixers or bread makers, but also fully robotic kitchens and robot chefs. These technological solutions are suitable for mixing ingredients, cutting, heating, and other processes. Thanks to this, even in the case of large batches, the quality of the product remains stable.
