How Industry 4.0 is Transforming the Food and Beverage Industry

Locating Industry 4.0 at the front line of the digital agenda in all manufacturing industries and thereby improving competitiveness is clearly relates to the food and beverage industry. Transforming consumer behavior and legal regulations, as well as improving specialization means new challenges for the industry. Even though many manufacturing plants have already automated their processes, there is still often the requirement for structural combination of a comprehensive data model.

As per ReportLinker, “The Internet of Things (IoT) and traceability for food and beverage (F&B) manufacturing market was estimated at $4.08 billion in market revenue in 2017 and is assumed to reach $8.43 billion by 2025, expanding at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.5%”.
Food manufacturing is still controlled in a centralized manner, in near future, machines and raw materials will individually arrange the manufacturing process and interact with each other over corporate divisions in a similar way to that of social media networks.

The four features of Industry 4.0 – vertical networking of intelligent manufacturing systems, horizontal integration through the integration of manufacturing, virtualization, logistics and combination along the whole supply chain, exponential technologies – are discovering new pathways to the manufacturing plant of the future for the food and beverage industry.

The track ability of contamination is, however, a complex matter, as various factors such as microbial impurities, labeling and packaging errors, contamination by metals, plastic, glass or potentially hazardous substances such as machine oil or biohazards need to be taken into consideration. Therefore, processes must be place into location to recognize and remove sources of error.

Sensor technologies contribute largely to this effort. There are also other systems that authorize systematic and effective data tracking from raw material to end product.

Industry 4.0 is changing the food industry

Industry 4.0 enables businesses to optimize the four levels of their performances (things, equipment, manufacturing operations management, business systems) by giving greater surveillance of the complete process. It empowers a company to make conclusions on the large volume of data that is being constructed at the four levels, to better search it out how the entire operation is executing so that smarter solutions can be found to issues as they appear.

Widely, therefore, Industry 4.0 enables a business to make an impact in the following areas

Many of the movements within Industry 4.0 empower a food manufacturer to better meet these requirements. It allows them to:

• Gather more data, in real time, to notify decision making and examine it more rapidly.
• Utilize the data once it’s been examined in concurrence with their own industry expertise to evolve insights and conceptualize, processes about how to control their systems even better.
• Make better, more literate decisions depends on those insights about their business strategy

For example, smart machines that can interact with each other means full traceability and clarity is possible across the whole food manufacturing value chain. This, in turn, strengthens food safety and helps a business meet supervisory requirements in the most systematic manner. Self-driving vehicles minimizes manpower costs, can accelerate deliveries and make the manufacturing process more efficient.

There are also other systems that enable well planned and efficient data tracking from raw material to end product.

Consideration of changing consumer behavior

21st century consumers investigate their products on their smart phones and frequently select them purposely depending on the nutrients they want to have in their diet. Therefore, to encourage consumers to purchase their products, manufacturers and retailers must choose point-of-sale (POS) solutions which empower them to impact purchase decisions at the retail outlet itself. One example is POS displays that incorporate with customers’ mobile devices (POS is “point-of-sale” and refers to the actual transaction that occurs when the customer buys the product).

Another appearing technology is intelligent labeling. The integration of software applications, wireless labeling and cloud platforms empowers consumers examine product labels with their smart phones to assure the product’s originality or to gain information concerning ratings or product videos. It only needs a Near Field Communication (NFC)-enabled device. The data that these intelligent labels give manufacturers includes demographic information, location, likes, social shares and the actual amount of data retrieval.
Forward-thinking organizations are also testing strategies such as expanding the shelf life of fresh products or reducing food and packaging waste.

Data management

Optimizing the interchange and collection of data over every machine in the product chain allows not only quick access to crucial data, but also empowers that all steps in the process are safely archived. Data management is the sum of all parts and for each part, this upcoming technology observes to be quite promising. In this way, cloud computing can support manufacturers provide information related to one or even thousands of products to utilize for analysis.

Where the greatest industry challenges lie

The market is surely appears to be more than saturated. So manufacturers of food industries are facing with few challenges.

Reserving Clean Labels without compromising taste

The obesity rate has doubled worldwide from 1980 to 2014. The connection between sweetened grocery items and obesity is well archived. For companies that make soft drinks, kids’ drinks and protein-based beverages, minimizing sugar content will become a prime priority in the near future. The biggest challenge this introduces, however, is minimizing the amount of sugar while maintaining the sweetness and taste of products. Investigation and evolution are recently started and in full speed ahead to find natural ingredients that reserve the same taste but can be promoted in the form of clean labels means producing a product utilizing as few ingredients as possible and making sure those ingredients are ingredients that consumers might use at home to address the requirements of health intended consumers.

Correlation of legal standards

Food regulations are undertaking constant change. Irrespective of the fact that official and internal standards are not always compatible, manufacturers are also facing the challenge of encountering the growing demands of an increasingly better illuminated customer base. If manufacturers are not capable to guarantee harsh supply chains and a strong food safety management system, the risk of successive recalls is great. Automated and transparent processes, along with optimized workflows can assure a systematic data management and enhanced quality control system.

Enhancing specialization

Consumers, meanwhile, are bothered with an oversupply of products. The wide array of choice is enormous and leads to decreased willingness to purchase, added to the increased wish to buy organic and healthy products. Food manufacturing companies must evolve strategies to stand out from the herd and change themselves from competitors. Food manufacturing companies need to find unique selling points that give a typical competitive advantage and add value. That can be anything, varying from clean labels to environmentally friendly packaging, to genuine marketing of supportable company values.

Key benefits of Industry 4.0 in food industry

Enhance food quality, operational productivity and compliance

Companies in the food and beverage industries face unique challenges as they frequently encounter hard production environments and precise regulatory requirements. The Internet of Things (IoT) assists food and beverage companies acquire substantial visibility over their manufacturing, transportation and production operations to give higher quality products for end consumers while preserving operational efficiency and remaining adaptable with governmental rules.

Simplify operations and improve efficiency

IoT-enabled solutions give a variety of logistical benefits for food and beverage companies. Connected devices can support industries in the food and beverage manufacturing industry increase efficiency and improve business processes while also working to prevent machine downtime and expensive issues:

• Use sensors to restore real-time data that enables you to trace inventory, specify when replenishment is needed and activate automatic consignments.
• Examine and track consignments, planning alternative routes to assure that products are delivered on time.
• Remotely analyze the conditions of containers and other vessels to assure quality and security of the final product.
• Get warnings on machine maintenance and repair issues to control operational efficiency and prevent expensive malfunctions.

Increase food and beverage safety

Taking sufficient food safety measures is not only an essential part of giving quality food and beverage products to the end consumer but it also plays a crucial role in supporting compliance. Different food ordinance organizations and governmental agencies across the world are now started demanding more detailed tracking and record-keeping to assure compatible food safety. IoT-enabled food and beverage solutions support companies remain flexible while giving the best quality products:

• Monitor food in transit to assure transportation conditions do not impact food security or quality of final product.
• Give more detailed and exact record-keeping on how food is constructed, produced, transported and reserved.
• Use sensors to analyze temperatures in containers to assure that food products are being reserved.
• Activate staff to accomplish and confirm required food safety inspections when data collected from sensors suggests potential issues or breaches.

Leaner Inventory Management

Smart, connected IoT products can also be a game changer for IoT solutions in retail. Digitized products through smart packaging attaching to the cloud and upgrading their status autonomously will give arise to smoother and more systematic inventory management operations. Employees working in warehouses will have an exact idea relating to the number of units per item and products approaching their expiration dates. IoT will allow simpler, smarter and more intelligent inventory management solutions that are cost-effective, well organized and wastage due to overstocking.

Reduction in food wastage

Smarter inventory management process will result in quicker detection of expiry dates and better organized stocking operations and minimizing food wastage due to spoilage. Smarter storage and transportation facilities make it possible to manage and keep ideal conditions for food items so that they do not spoil. Smart, connected products will be able to upgrade details regarding their quality on their own in their digital counterparts, making it easier for warehouse employees to rapidly recognize any food items nearing its expiration date. IoT-enabled intelligent processes can also support retailers to give more to food banks.

Supply chain management, Traceability and product recall

An integration of digital tags on everyday consumer products and tracking sensors on transportation facilities can allow manufacturers to maintain track of their products at every stage within the supply chain, leading to well organized and leaner supply chain operations. Zeroing on and attaching to the source of production to begin product recalls in case of damaged goods becomes simpler and quicker by connecting every item on a batch and serial level to the Internet.
IoT enables brands and manufacturers with increased visibility into the journey of a specific food item from source or manufacturing plant to the shelf of a retail store.

Industry 4.0 enables a food manufacturer to assure its processes will better serve changing consumer trends. It will allow their workforce to gain new skills and take greater responsibility and to manufacture products more systematically and beneficially. With a connected workforce, data analytics and connected manufacturing processes the food industry can look confidently ahead to the abilities of the world of Industry 4.0. 

IoT is the basic infrastructure to build an essential Industrial IoT Solutions with the help of an IoT Course.