Robotics is the Forthcoming Technology in Food and Beverage Packing

Food and Beverages Tech Review | Friday, February 08, 2019

Robots are taking charge of the food and beverage packing. This has been due to their ability to monitor and manage the packing stages of manufacturing. Due to automation, they are growing smarter. In the past, due to complex and stringent rules around the food and beverage packaging, the adoption of robotics slowed down. However, with the increasing pressure from retailers, the robots have become the need of the hour. According to a recent survey, almost 33 percent of food processing operations use robotics in their facilities.

The most significant advantage of using robotics is flexibility. Modern robots can take on more dexterous tasks such as de-panning which is removing baked goods from trays and de-nesting which is taking empty packages out of a stock. This shows that robots are flexible enough to perform primary, secondary, and tertiary packaging. Machines have speed, accuracy, and consistency and due to this, the majority of organizations that buy their first robot implement them throughout the organization.

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Robots have been kept separate from employees for health and safety reasons. Nonetheless, with time changing trends and collaborative robots or cobots, designed to work alongside humans they are being adopted. Cobots increase cost efficiencies through lower production costs and wastage of raw materials.  Companies are building robots with a simple interface that allows employees to programme them easily. The benefit of these robots is that they are safer to work with. Robots can work closely without butting heads with humans, and robot behavior is safe when working with a human.

Advancements in artificial intelligence and big data will impact the future of packaging. The robots will be interconnected and increase efficiency across the board. Companies are focused on developing a platform with the ability to use internet of things that aims to connect any electrical device to the local network and use a cloud-based system to capture data. The performance of interconnected robots is easier to track. The packaging industry will evolve into a digital industry in the future with real-time information to drive efficiency. 

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