Emerging from the recession and Food 2030
Contributed by Anonymous on Monday, November 23 @ 09:29:29 CET
Topic: Control Systems
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FMEG MEETING AT FESTO, NORTHAMPTON - 4 November 2009 -
ENERGISING FOOD MANUFACTURING TO EMERGE FROM RECESSION TO A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE MORNING SESSION
This successful meeting was attended by more than 40 delegates. Steve Land welcomed the meeting to Festo, explained the history of the company and the focus on automation, industrial control and pneumatics.
The Managing Director of Festo, Gary Wyles, addressed the meeting on emerging from the recession and urged companies to consider three dimensions of waste and energy. These are: power, process and people. An example of wasted power was leakage from pneumatics. Processes needed to be productive, flexible, add value, be sustainable, be continuously improved and part of the lean agenda. Any process that does not add value creates waste. People need to be engaged in the agenda and tasks and the engagement needs to be from the ground up. Staff will mimic the management so leadership must have conviction and communicate clearly.
Robert Matthews of Defra outlined the consultation 'Food 2030'. He emphasised the importance of the food industry as an employer, creator of wealth and providing nutrients essential to health. He listed the future challenges of feeding a larger population in a sustainable way, with thriving food and farming and reductions in the use of water and energy and minimising waste. Defra was leading co-ordination across the government. There had been a good response to the consultation. This would be published in early 2010.
Andrew Cowey of Siemens chaired the discussion. The first question was to focus on the changes needed to assist food companies and where they could obtain the knowledge for change. Mike Dudbridge of the University of Lincoln stated that consultations with food manufacturers indicated that they needed training to cope with the present technology and that additional training was needed for advanced technology such as automation. The University was developing courses to support companies in adopting new technology. Consumer expectations may have to change on 100% availability that comes at a high cost of short and expensive runs. The lack of engineers in the food industry especially senior management and in government departments was retarding progress.
Ginsters had automated but had to seek information and advice from the automotive sector. There had to be a shift in skills and the new technology needed to keep simplicity. The behavioural change was the most difficult to manage and it was challenging to align people to new ideas in other businesses. Ginsters had had a payback time of under 2 years on their investment in automation.
John Reed of Silsoe Technology said the goal of higher production with less environmental impact would require more inovation and better technology. The industry had to lead on innovation. Government has control of legislation and taxation to influence and research funds to assist innovation. Dr Cole of Defra explained the new funding via the Technology Strategy Board (TSB) and suggested that FMEG should start a dialogue with the TSB on innovation in the food industry.
The delegates toured the Festo site and saw technology demonstrations of automation, robotics and control systems.
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