Because food and beverage manufacturers are struggling to find and retain production workers, they must turn to another group to fill the gap – one driven by technology and automation, and for which there seems to be endless potential.
As automation increases, more sensors are required in processing plants to ensure efficiency, safety and quality of food and beverages. As there are fewer people present, the more powerful sensor technology needs to become.
Look around any plant today and you’re likely to see equipment using some sort of sensor monitoring attributes and conditions related to quality, safety, process efficiency or equipment life and other data. In turn, many processors have embraced sensor technology, the data it provides and the insights it can provide. Johanna Velez, vice president of quality assurance at Monin Americas, is one of them.
“Many of these sensors help detect things that are not visible to the naked eye. That’s very helpful because we want to know immediately if something is defective,” says Velez. “I want to detect a defect while the product is still here in the factory and we can make adjustments.”
Ensuring quality and consistency
Monin Americas, a division of global manufacturer Monin that produces a variety of flavored syrups, sauces, and beverage bases and concentrates for the retail, food service and hospitality industries, opened a new U.S. manufacturing facility in Sparks, Nevada, in 2020.
The company is constantly looking for ways to improve and recently installed robotic arms to pick up empty bottles and place them into the bottling line, eliminating human contact with the bottles for food safety reasons.
The sensors are the main reason why this robot works properly. However, Velez adds, “Because this is a mechanical arm that moves, employee safety is another concern.”
Monin has installed curtain-like sensors that stop the robot arms when an employee moves or walks through the curtains into the area. Sensors in the packaging area also help newly installed robots place a pump into the cartons with each bottle of product, removing the task from employees who might miss a carton while trying to keep up with production speed.
In addition, Velez points out that the company has installed sensors that prevent equipment from operating if the required filters are not present, ensuring that a critical control point for the plant is strictly adhered to.
When it comes to product quality, the Sparks plant uses X-ray sensors to check the fill levels of bottles much faster and more efficiently than line workers can. Overfilled or underfilled bottles are diverted to a reject area for reprocessing. At the same time, vision systems can inspect the filled product for any defects and read the label to ensure it is correctly applied to the right product.
“There are so many tools we can use for quality control on the production line, especially when the production lines are running so fast,” she says. “You can check the fill level, your caps, the labels, the presence of a pump – all automated and with sensors, instead of having an employee check it.”
Feel what’s coming
Velez wants the next generation of sensors to be able to not only find a problem, but also determine its origin, stop the production line, fix the problem with the affected equipment and restart the lines to properly produce the product.
Ryan Thompson, a senior specialist at CRB who focuses on Industry 4.0 practices, says technology continues to evolve rapidly, so this kind of thinking may not be too far-fetched. “The most significant changes have come with the rapid evolution toward network sensors,” he says. Network sensors significantly reduce commissioning and calibration times and reduce the overall number of inputs and outputs, Thompson adds.
“Perhaps more importantly, however, network sensors enable the collection of contextualized data. The data can be used by control systems or made available to other systems as needed.”
Thompson says he personally looks forward to reaching the plug-and-produce stage, “where very little or no programming is needed to connect sensors to systems.”
