What's Driving The Rise Of Robotics In Food Manufacturing?

By Paula Feldman, director, Business Intelligence, PMMI

Plant safety. Product safety. Efficiency. Robotics use is on the rise, and these three points are the driving force behind it all.

Regardless of what you manufacture, chances are you’re using more robots and robotic technologies than ever before. In fact, according to a 2014 study from PMMI, The Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies, 72 percent of manufacturers are using robotics somewhere in production lines.

The 100 interviews conducted for the 2014 PMMI “Trends in Robotics” study — in-depth conversations with end users, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), integrators, robot suppliers, and industry experts — revealed shifts in robotic use and expected benefits since the last edition, published in 2008.

“In 2008, robotic applications and use were fairly limited — mostly for palletizing. That’s not so anymore,” says Paula Feldman, director, Business Intelligence at PMMI. “Today’s manufacturers have the option of using robots in processing areas as well as in packaging. We are starting to see some growth there, and food manufacturers predict robots will eventually be used to handle and debone raw products and visually inspect food products.”

The study suggests that from 2013 to 2018, the beverage industry will see an increase in usage of robots on processing lines from 2 percent to 4 percent, and food manufacturers from 5 percent to 7 percent.

On primary packaging lines, however, it’s a different picture. Food and beverage manufacturers plan to increase the use of robots in those applications from 9 percent to 22 percent in food and from 5 percent to 8 percent in beverage. Behind all the growth is a combination of technological developments that tie into three critical areas for any food manufacturer: accuracy, efficiency, and safety.

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