IBIE - 2022 Special Edition & Show Preview - 20

IBIE COMMITTEE ROUNDTABLE
reliable and more predictive. This situation has
accelerated innovation, so going into IBIE you're
going to see some pretty amazing things.
Jason Frye, Flowers Foods: To your point, adding
technology to your equipment where you have
predictive and data analytics show us exactly what
piece of equipment is contributing to downtime.
With long lead times, we can focus on those specific
pieces of equipment rather than a section or a
functional piece of equipment. We can evaluate the
equipment failure to determine is it the human or is
it the equipment? Is it our training or is it mechanical?
Now when I evaluate my capital spending and
where I want to spend my money next year, I can
hone in on a specific piece of equipment or functional
area and focus my investment.
(From left) Jorge
Zarate, Grupo
Bimbo; Ken
Newsome, Markel
Food Group;
and Jason Frye,
Flowers Foods,
share how bakers
are prioritizing
capacity over
new product
innovation.
How is the labor shortage and high demand impacting
the investment bakers are looking for as they come to
IBIE? Are they looking for things they've never looked
at before?
Mr. LeCrone: Bakers are more willing to look at
technology that's been around a while. Robotics
and vision technology has been around a long
time, but I think now where we're at, it's going to
be more accepted in that these might be a baker's
only solution.
Mr. Zarate: When bakers increase capacity, they
are looking for equipment that cleans easier, is
easier to maintain and can use an AI for predictive
maintenance. These are the features people are
looking for with automation.
Dennis Gunnell, Formost Fuji: Going back to
that need to streamline products on the production
line, that's right up automation's alley. The
hard part with automation has always been that
we want to run these 40 items and have all these
changeovers, whereas if you start streamlining that
and making it more efficient, that also leans into
the automation solution.
Dave Watson, The Austin Co.: The larger bakers
have invested over time into the highly automated
technologies like robotics. Smaller bakeries are
now getting ready to tip toe into the water. A
lot of the companies I work with don't have a lot
of automation in their plants, and they're being
forced to because of labor. And it comes down
to maintenance because they also don't have the
people in their plants to maintain and keep this
equipment operating, so the more user-friendly it
is, the better.
What do you see in robotic technology right now? How
much more user-friendly and affordable is it?
Mr. Watson: It's certainly come a long way since
the 1990s. Robots are much easier to program
and operate. There are robots that can adapt now
and try to learn. Again, the larger bakeries have
invested in robotics over the years, and they're
not afraid of robotics. It's the smaller companies
that are now more confident in the technology.
They have a smaller footprint, they are easier to
set up, easier to change over, so I would say bakers
shouldn't be afraid of robots anymore.
Mr. Frye: And the costs are finally coming into the
baking industry's margin. The automotive industry
uses a lot of vision and robotics, but there is a
greater market price and margin in the automotive
industry than there was in the baking industry. It
just wasn't affordable. The technology has come a
long way, and there are a lot more suppliers in the
market so now robotics can fit within our capex
budgets.
How are supply chain issues and long lead times impacting
baking companies' approaches to capital investment?
Mr. Frye: We're already accepting the fact that
deliveries are going to be long. Early on in COVID,
people were more optimistic about deliveries
20 | INSIDE IBIE
Dan Malovany
IBIE - 2022 Special Edition & Show Preview

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