Meat+Poultry - June 2019 - 86

RO BOTICS TE C HNOLOGY

better-quality and more-consistent products at
lower costs," McCormies says.

EARLY ADOPTION
There already has been an explosion in investment
in automation and robotics, with China leading
the way, he says.
"Even though China has lots of people and
low labor costs, the country is purchasing the
most robots because it's investing in the future
of manufacturing worldwide and wants to dominate the international markets," McCormies says.
Robotics and automation are a logical next step
for the United States, as the country has high
labor costs and unemployment at a record low.
McCormies says he's seeing investment in automation in the food industry but compared to
other categories, it's been a slow transition.
"As the meat industry is forced to look at
options as cost of labor goes up, robotics will
have to be considered," he says.
Current automation and robotics systems
have high computing capability, can generate plenty of data, have vastly improved vision
systems and are increasingly complex and capable, McCormies says.
However, systems are still largely limited
to operating in a highly structured environment and need to be controlled and monitored
by employees. McCormies says the number of
industrial robots sold worldwide quickly accelerated from 2014-17, with growth expected to
continue. Additionally, he says the cost of industrial robots are flat to declining while labor costs
continue to rise.

NOW TRENDING
first modern assembly lines weren't at Ford Motor
Co. but at slaughterhouses in Cincinnati and
Chicago in the 1870s.
Industry 3.0 covers the 1960s to today and has
seen rapid development and the use of microcomputers, instruments, sensors and software
technologies and the introduction of programmable logic controllers and robots. "In modern
plants today, robots are now doing repetitive
tasks with complicated software helping the
machines to work together," McCormies says.
As for the future, that's Industry 4.0, with
factories able to produce huge amounts of data
from production that artificial intelligence (AI)
can analyze to quickly make decisions. "This
will make plants run faster and able to offer

2019 AUTOMATION TRENDS + TECHNOLOGY MEAT+ POULTRY

Epstein and Prestage
Foods of Iowa have
partnered on a new
automation-filled
pork plant in Eagle
Grove, Iowa.

Emerging trends that the meat and poultry industries should note include use of "cobots," small
robots designed to work in tandem with people
to produce a result that is better and faster than
either could do alone, McCormies says. "Cobots,
for example, could hold something in place while
a person puts it into its final location," he says.
Currently, McCormies says the average cost of a
cobot is less than $25,000 and is expected to drop
below $20,000 by 2025; the average cost of a cobot
is currently $4 per hour.
Another emerging trend McCormies explains
is the Internet of Things (IoT), a computing concept that describes the idea of physical objects being connected to the internet and
being able to communicate and interact with
other devices over the internet. The "things" can

Meat+Poultry - June 2019

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