Report of Festo meeting - afternoon session
Contributed by Anonymous on Thursday, December 03 @ 12:11:48 CET
Topic: Food Automation
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FMEG MEETING AT FESTO, NORTHAMPTON - 4 November 2009
- ENERGISING FOOD MANUFACTURING TO EMERGE FROM RECESSION TO A
SUSTAINABLE FUTURE PAPERS FROM AFTERNOON 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.
Getting Automation into SME's - making the business case Steve Diggines, Head of MES Consulting, Enterprise Market, Atos Origin UK Ltd
Automation
brings the ability to improve the control of the production process. It
reduces variability and defects. It improves efficiency, use of
material, equipment and energy. It does not necessarily reduce the
people deployed but their roles may change.
A micro-brewery
flourishes by producing high quality ale. It wishes to expand without
compromising quality. The process can be approached in a number of
ways. Process engineering, quality improvement or other improvements
can be examined.
Improvements can come in varying sizes. These are smaller point solutions versus major changes. Each potential solution should look at the impacts on:
- People
- Processes
- Organisation
Point changes will involve few people, some technology and should be more straightforward.
Major changes will involve:
- The whole organisation
- People - whose roles may change
- Technology
- Quality
- Engineering
The two types of change can be combined
What you need to know before you change:
- Business priorities
- Identify automation opportunities
- Prioritise your changes
- Build a business case
- Gain approval for funding
Priorities may not include cost reduction but
- Improve competitive advantage
- Improve throughput
- Improve service
- Improve quality
- Improve the environment including health and safety
- Reduce risk
- Increase sustainability
How do you spot opportunities?
By walking through the process, understanding best practice and by increasing the knowledge of the staff.
Where do you seek help?
There are sources of help such as the Manufacturing Advisory Service,
National Industrial Synergy Programme, automation suppliers and some
universities.
How do you prioritise?
You look for the bottlenecks, can you streamline and where are the
biggest benefits? Initially look for some quick wins as this will help
build confidence in the change process. Plot benefits against
automation components. You must specify benefits and be clear how you
would measure improvement and when. Write down key assumptions,
variables and compute financial impact
Then you must Do Something -
Build up ideas and look at:
Costs, benefits and implementation
Outputs, payback, discounted cashflow look at options on funding
Gain approval for funding by selling the ideas internally, look for
outside support eg grant for business investment, Carbon Trust or EU
schemes.
The aim is to create factories fit for the future.
Synergies within Food & Drink Manufacture Charlotte Harper, Regional Manager East Midlands, NISP
The National Industrial Synergy Programme (NISP) works across
industrial sectors. It aims to improve the use of materials in industry
by redirecting waste materials and resources, water and improving
logistics.
The programme is government funded and free. The programme is
regionally based with 12 regional teams and each region has an advisory
group. In the East Midlands the group includes representatives from
Arla, Boots and Nobel Foods.
The scheme allows companies to access practitioners to examine the flow
of raw materials into a process, the waste material out and look at
uses for the waste.
Examples of successful synergies include:
- Turning waste milk into energy
- Bio generation of gas for combined heat and power from aerobic digestion of food waste
- Waste plastic from a crisp manufacturer recycled saving £2,500
- Dissolved air floatation treatment of effluents with solids allowing compliance with legislation
- Surplus carbon dioxide from a nitrogen gas producer re routed to a tomato grower created 65 jobs
Food waste mixed with packaging was a problem as it could contain plastic, metallised polypropylene and low grade plastic.
Food fit for consumption is being channelled to social enterprizes and food waste to anaerobic digestion and vermiculture.
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