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The food industry has been heavily hit from two sides: on one hand being closed down, and on the other hand having to rush to secure orders, such as in food retail, which we will discuss further later. In fact, many adjustments that food and beverage plants had to make to respond to COVID-19 will continue to be applied to future plant and production line designs. I discussed food and beverage plant construction and post-pandemic scenarios with several architectural and engineering companies. Of course, everyone agrees that the industry needs to be better prepared for the next pandemic. Whether it's another coronavirus or other types of infectious diseases, another virus is inevitably coming.
In fact, Abbey International conducted a study where 78% of restaurant industry executives stated they are actively preparing for future global pandemics. Nearly one-third responded, expecting another pandemic within 4 years. Regardless of how much you believe or disbelieve it, or when you think it might arrive, no one wants to take chances.
In many ways, the food and beverage industry didn't face the same hygiene challenges in factory workshops because they were already committed to very hygienic processes. They know how to keep equipment clean and production areas clean. Therefore, they focused more on how to spread these already high cleaning standards further, applying what they know about keeping equipment clean to workstations or public areas like break rooms or locker rooms. There will be more places for employees to wash hands, more touchless faucets and doors, things like that.
Therefore, some architectural engineering companies have been asked to consider dividing HVAC systems into different zones, considering where air flows from and where it goes. There's much to consider regarding airflow, with additional guard stations in specific plants so everyone doesn't enter the same place. They're building wider corridors, basically figuring out what to do if we have sick people so they don't pass others when leaving.
Early in the pandemic, people naturally had high expectations for robotics' role in creating more social distance, especially collaborative robots that could be more flexible and placed anywhere. They're cheaper. You can put them there. Next to workers. This seemed like the perfect time for such things. In fact, early in the pandemic, I interviewed a panel of robotics executives. It was like April 2020, and they were clearly excited about prospects, talking about how they could help manufacturers reconfigure production lines to start producing PPE, test strips, or hand sanitizer—things needed during the pandemic.
My view is that I think we haven't seen much robotics in food industry; it looks more like a good way to supplement and free up labor, especially for manufacturing facilities constrained by existing space. In fact, I do have an example—it's their new product line. They don't know a new product line, they don't know how the product will perform in the market. They don't want to invest in automated production lines, but they had workers standing shoulder-to-shoulder on packaging lines. During this period, they basically just extended conveyor lengths, added barriers between workers, and incorporated different air handling systems. So this food manufacturer is concentrating funds on full robotics to automate packaging lines.
Beverage and packaging production lines help increase automation, while things like meat processing are less suitable for automation. Animals lack consistency. They enter work units in different ways, but in other areas, automation makes more sense. Like Kraft, Heinz Group is an example—they made significant investments during the pandemic to automate cleaning and systems. So before the pandemic, it was already being reconsidered. But once the pandemic erupted, it became necessary because it made more sense, being almost independent of human cleaning systems and your reliance on workplace wages and their ability to find workers, which the pandemic exacerbated. Their workforce was already hard to fill, proving even more why they need robots.
I think the part I want to emphasize is the need for flexibility. Therefore, I do believe more manufacturers are willing to develop these plans when considering their plant's future. It should be more flexible. So when I think about flexibility, I think about many topics we've been discussing over the past few years, needing to be able to make quick conversions when needed and having smarter active systems that allow this flexibility.
Actually, I want to talk about the digitalization and software aspects of manufacturing here. That's really the focus. That's digital transformation. I had an interesting conversation with West Liberty Foods, which processes various meats. Their biggest customer is Subway. But when the pandemic arrived, they had a production line that had operated for 10 to 15 years and suddenly needed to shift production to retail stores like Costco and Walmart Sam's Club.
So suddenly they had to package what was previously 1 package into 40 individual boxes instead. During the first weeks of COVID-19, they were really worried, especially because some of their employees also contracted the virus, but they did successfully navigate this change thanks to their employees' focus on digital software. It connects the entire IoT in real-time data with human problem-solving processes, pointing the direction forward. Let digital software help you figure out what needs to happen and how you need to adjust to provide some flexibility.
The above content is translated from ProFood World Aaron Hand interview audio by Speed Packaging Equipment, specializing in R&D and production of downstream automated packaging equipment!
