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Automation in Food Manufacturing and Processing

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Springer Handbook of Automation

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Abstract

Factory-based food production and processing globally forms one of the largest economic and employment sectors. Within it, current automation and engineering practice is highly variable, ranging from completely manual operations to the use of the most advanced manufacturing systems. This chapter will discuss the factors that make automation of food production so essential and at the same time consider counterinfluences that on occasions have prevented this automation uptake.

The chapter will focus on the diversity of an industry covering areas such as bakery, dairy, confectionary, snacks, meat, poultry, seafood, produce, sauce/condiments, frozen, and refrigerated products, which means that generic solutions are often (considered by the industry) difficult or impossible to obtain. However, it will also be shown that there are many features in the production process that are almost completely generic, such as labeling, quality/safety automation/inspection, and palletization, and others that do in fact require an almost unique approach due to the natural and highly variable features of food products. In considering these needs, this chapter has therefore approached the specific automation requirements of food production from two perspectives. Firstly, it will be shown that in many cases there are generic automation solutions that could be valuably used across the industry ranging from small cottage facilities to large multinational manufacturers. Examples of generic types of automation well suited across the industry will be provided. In addition, for some very specific difficult handling operations, customized solutions will be shown to give opportunities to study the problems/risks/demands associated with food handling and to provide an insight into the solution, thereby demonstrating that in most instances the difficult/impossible can indeed be achieved.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Advanced Robotics, Istituto Italiano Di Tecnologia, Genoa, Italy

    Darwin G. Caldwell

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  1. Darwin G. Caldwell
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Correspondence to Darwin G. Caldwell .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. PRISM Center and School of Industrial Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA

    Shimon Y. Nof

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Caldwell, D.G. (2023). Automation in Food Manufacturing and Processing. In: Nof, S.Y. (eds) Springer Handbook of Automation. Springer Handbooks. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-96729-1_44

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