In our current economic climate, many businesses are struggling immensely. However, if you are in the food industry, this is not the case. Many of these food companies have seen drastically increased demand during the virus as people are eating much more. At NOVA, we serve the companies who make the food for the people who make the food you love. For instance, we create machines to package steam rolled oats, which are then processed to go into the products consumers love such as cookies or bread.
Without efficient and safe packaging processes, these raw food companies can suffer massive losses at the hands of error. Here are a few of the many benefits packaging automation with NOVA can provide a food company.
Precision
Without automation, human error is inevitable. For a major US bread supplier, all it took was one employee mistake of adding milk accidentally to the breadcrumbs to set off the largest recalls in the history of our country. Over 4 million pounds of food had to be recalled due to milk (a leading allergen) ending up in massive amounts of products.
By automating your food packaging line, you significantly reduce the risk of human error in the process. This risk is especially prevalent in the food industry. The cleanliness and safety of the product are incredibly significant during the packaging process. You can make your process much cleaner and safer for the end consumer while reducing the unnecessary risk your business is taking on during the packaging process.
Jobs
It can be extremely difficult to find workers willing to operate in hot packaging factories. With companies like Amazon boasting their air-conditioned facilities where employees are comfortable and are provided a plethora of breaks and amenities throughout the day, getting people to come work on your food packaging line can be a great challenge for many businesses.
Automation is a fantastic way to solve this problem. You are not taking jobs away from your people in any way. You are simply making their jobs easier. You can simply turn your automated system into your greatest tenured employee.
By making our systems incredibly easy to operate, the time needed to train a new employee on how to operate it is very low. When employees leave for whatever reason, you can easily bring on new employees who can operate the machinery.
Automating your packaging line is a great way to not only make your employees jobs much easier but also to reduce the need for extra employees and make those jobs far more attractive when extra help is needed.
NOVA Automation
NOVA provides top of the line automated packaging machines for all manners of companies. However, the food industry is one of the best industries for packaging automation. There is little room for error in the food industry, as any small error can lead to massive losses for the company. Contact us today to learn more about what we can do for you.
Automated packaging of products can bring many benefits to your company. Some of these benefits are obvious, tangible benefits, and others are more intangible, but nevertheless equally beneficial to your company and your bottom line profit.
Automated packaging of products can mean many different things to different people and your interpretation depends entirely on the market you are in. For some it may mean the packaging of food into containers, or liquids into bottles; whereas for others, it may mean the binding together and wrapping of large sheets of material. With this diversity of product, automated packaging systems are also very diverse, and often have to be bespoke made to meet a company’s requirements.
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Whilst these is often the need to package each individual product, there is also often the need to further box and palletise these products to make them ready to ship. When this process is automated, it can also be referred to as automated packaging.
Let’s start by looking into some of the tangible benefits of automated packaging;
Reduces The Risk Of Repetitive Strain Injury
Repetitive strain injury risks are lowered when products are packed automatically rather than manually. This is due to the fact that automation removes the need for human input to complete repetitive manual tasks. Not sure how high the risk of RSI is in your process? Download our repetitive strain injury risk assessment form and find out now.
Eliminate Potential Bottlenecks
Manual packaging processes can often lead to bottlenecks within a production process when human errors occur. Automated packaging processes can help to eliminate this bottleneck as a bespoke machine will be designed to keep up with the flow off the production line. With automated packaging there is also less scope for packaging errors, which in turn leads to less downtime and bottlenecks.
Improved Production Speed
Automating your packaging process can lead to improved production speeds. Often when there is a manual packaging process, the machine producing the product is not able to run at full capacity as the manual packaging process is not able to keep up with this level of output. By automating the packaging of the products you are then able to remove this constraint and improve your production speed.
Eliminate Downtime
As with any process involving manual labour, staff are entitled to breaks. Often in factories this means that production stops during these breaks resulting in downtime and loss of production. With an automated packaging solution, these breaks no longer happen, and the machines can be run 24/7 if required.
To find out more about the tangible benefits of automated packaging, download our automation payback calculator here.
Intangible benefits are harder to define, but below are some of the more common intangible benefits:
Increased Staff Morale
Factory staff packaging products are often working relatively long hours on repetitive tasks that quickly become mind numbing and boring. As the boredom sets in, the pace unintentionally slows and very quickly the production output can settle to a pace that is a lot less efficient and effective than it could be. Also, when staff are bored and only half concentrating on the job at hand, mistakes start to happen, which can then result in product defects or health and safety issues etc. If repetitive jobs, such are packaging of products, are automated then staff can be re-deployed to other areas of the business that are less mundane; which in turn creates more engagement and job satisfaction.
Increased Sales Due To Reduced Product Cost
Whilst there is the initial need for capital outlay when introducing an automated packaging system to your process this needs to be considered carefully. It is important to calculate what your current costs are in terms of production speeds, staffing costs, product defects, RSI claims, etc. Without a complete picture of your current cost, and a knowledge of the added value of increased production speeds that an automated packaging system would bring, it is impossible to get a complete picture of how quickly your capital investment will pay for itself. Introducing an automated packaging system usually results in reduced product cost and the capacity to manufacture more products, thus creating more product to sell and resulting in increased profit on your bottom line.
Better Customer Service
With an automated packaging process the risk of product defects and recalls is significantly decreased. This along with the increased production capacity enables you to give your customers a better service. As we all know, better customer services results in more loyal customers and repeat business bringing greater profits to your company.
To find out more about the intangible benefits of automated packaging, download our intangible benefits calculator here.
Although we have only covered a few of the benefits of automated packaging, as you can see, there are many visible benefits as well as hidden benefits of automating this process. If you would like any help in calculating the value of these tangible or intangible benefits, feel free to contact us on and we will be very happy to help.
Are you interested in learning more about Automatic Packaging Line? Contact us today to secure an expert consultation!