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21st
Century
Food
Plant
т
The food plant of the future will not be a "Star Trek”
type factory. It will be a facility which could be built today with available materials and processes.
How will it differ from present day plants? What have we to look forward to? Here are some highlights:
The day of the large multi* product food plant serving a national market is passing. The future food plant will serve a regional market It will produce only a limit ed number of products. It will be located as near as possible to the source of raw materials.
Services and utilities will be dealt with in a. more sophisticated fashion. Water, after use, will be purified and re-used. Power will come from either a hydrogen fuel cell or a small atomic-powered unit, refueled every eight-years.
Plant waste will be incinerated without producing fumes or odors. Both the waste and the heat generated by waste treatment will be recycled for energy and to produce animal feeds.
The future food plant will be lo cated outside a municipality in a green belt on a site served by a road network for truck transportation. There will be little use made of rail- roads. The reason why is develop- ing today..As transportation costs continue to rise, food plants will be forced to become more regionally oriented. No longer will plants haul
RICHARD H. WEGENER.
Stqff Consultant, The Austin Co., Cleveland, Ohio.
Compact, less labor intensive, powered by atomic fuel cells, the future food plant could be built today.
raw materials or finished products over long distances.
Much smaller plant
The plant site itself will be smaller. Typical site-to-plant ratio will be 2.5:1, in contrast with the present 6:1 ratio.
The site will be smaller for two reasons. One, the labor force will be far smaller than today (we shall soon see what will run future food plants). Because there will be very few employees, parking lots and other employee amenities will be very small compared to the space required for these facilities today. And second, there will be no provisions made for expansion. Again, food plant's will be dedicated to a region, and will not be enlarged to add more distribution or production capacity.
The 21st century labor force
The labor force of the future will have four components. These are: microprocessors, minicomputers, robots, and lasers. This labor force will not need coffee breaks, extended sessions in the restroom, lunch breaks, days off, or even pay raises!
Every plant manager dreams of the day he will have a button on his desk to control the total plant operation. While there will not be a single-button system, one can envi-
sion a small computer console which will enable the manager to schedule production, control inventory of raw and finished products, regulate maintenance, and monitor all basic plant func- tions.
On the plant floor, microproces- sors will actuate almost all the indi- vidual processing operations: mea- suring, dumping, mixing, timing, raising and lowering steam pres- sure, and so on.
Minicomputers will control a num- ber of microprocessors. They also will store information on raw and finished product inventory, pack- aging materials, fuel and other forms of energy, product cost, and labor expenses.
Labor expenses will be quite small. Robots will perform a multi- tude of operations which now re- quire human labor. These ma- chines can be programmed to carry out almost any function, with only a few exceptions, that humans do now. Humans, for the most part, will only do sanitation chores.
Lasers will also be an integral part of the future food plant Lasers will do the dicing, chopping, cutting, peeling, and slicing. Already the idea is well along. At least three separate research groups are working on applying lasers to cutting and separating, and several units are operating in laboratories. What’s more, water jet cutters are being tested with increasing interest. These literally shoot a beam of water under extreme pressure (usually 45,000 psi) through product
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FUTURE FOOD PLANT
The beam is the size of a human hair, so product docs cot absorb water. The art is fast, doesn’t leave dust behind, is completely sanitary, has во chance of breaking off, and i has pinpoint accuracy.
Lasers may sound a bit advanced for food plants, but they are com- tag. Perhaps not in the next three years, but coming nevertheless. Another technology that sounds like it Would never find its way into a food plant is atomic energy. Perhaps not for fifteen years, but atomic energy and hydrogeo fuel cells could be the ideal replacements for today's energy sources.
We already have a model to follow: atomic energy is widely used today in the U.S. Navy. Small units power some 800 ships, and to date, there has never been a major, life- threatening accident. What’s more, the operators usually have two or three years experience running the units. Food plants could also use | small atomic units or fuel cells, Imagine recharging your plant only Once every eight years!
Construction will differ
With robots running things, the future food plant will be designed differently than today’s plants. Be- cause production lines will be automated, illumination requirements will be very low, perhaps 5-10 foot- caadles. If more light is needed for inspection or equipment maintenance, portable lamps will be moved into the area.
And because the production area will not require people, temperatures win range between SO and 85F. The only exceptions will occur when product itself requires higher or lower temperatures.
The future food plant will be able to operate 20 hours a day, making eight-hour shifts a thing of the past The big advantage will be accelerated write-off for equipment and buildings.
Straight product flow
Product will take a straight- through flow path, which will re- duce bottlenecks and speed up product movement As packaging materials, containers and pallets are needed for the final stages of processing, they will be moved from storage areas directly to their respective points of use. Very little material will be held in inventory.
Physically, the future food plant will have certain construction dutails not found in plants today. Floors will be sealed with epoxy. Tile will be used only in high-tem- perature locations. Floor drains will be deep-sealed, and water from equipment will be directed right into sewers, not over floors. Gutter systems will not be used bccause they are unsanitary, hard to maintain, and difficult to clean.
Walls will be fabricated of insulated panels of enamel on steel or aluminum. Panels will be set on two-meter high concrete sill walls for protection against equipment or lift truck damage.
Ceilings also will be constructed of enamel panels, with the upper
Pleat design will change considerably when robots run things
surfaces fabricated of 1 x 10-meter, 3/8-inch thick plywood, capable of holding 150 pounds per square foot Тhе area above the ceiling panels will house everything from air handling ducts to utility maintenance items. Workmen will be able to walk in the space and do routine repairs without contaminating the processing lines. In addition, positive pressure will be maintained so dirt can’t drop onto the lines.
To further reduce maintenance and improve sanitation, there will be no interior columns. All exterior support columns will be encased in the interior walls. Painting will be confined to the exterior of the production area.
Visitors will not be permitted in the production area, but will be able to view the processing lines from a gallery. This will safeguard the plant's sanitary environment
Case histories in miniature
Many of the components of the future food plant already are in use today. For example, one major food plant has a computer which sets up pallet loads upon receipt of orders from a central location 300 miles away. No employees are re quired for order picking. The computer controls slacting cranes which move to racks and remove pallets. Pallets arc then conveyed to an order mаkе-up area. Loads are formed and convcyed to trucks. If a particular item is out of stock, the computer notifies management via a print out, so the item can be requisitioned.
A large, recently completed meat plant made its operation semi-au- tomatic, Workers move bellies and hams into the pumping operation and load the trees. From that point onward, computers take over and control all phases of production.
Another major meat packer has computerized the primary operations of a ham and bacon facility. The product flow follows a straight line, removing bottlenecks.
In a European candy plant, pieces of chocolate are positioned by two robots at a rate of 270 pieces per minute each. This operation re- placed 23 operators. It affords the confectioner, a payback period of less than 34 months.
A condiment plant is laid out with a straight-line flow. What’s unique is that the principal raw material is vinegar, something not exactly conducive to handling in straight-line fashion. The structural frame in the vinegar area is constructed of glulam timber and stainless steel fasteners.. An air lock separates the vinegar area from bottling and the warehouse, thus segregating vinegar fumes from the steel construction in the rest of the plant
In another plant, an automated bottling line is completely managed by computer. Caps are fed into a large hopper, labels are fed to the labeler from rolls. Liquid levels are checked, and capping is monitored automatically. If Tue line slows down for any reason, an accum ila- tor is activated to store bottles until the problem is solved. Labeled bottles are checked and moved to cases and then palletized.
And finally, because of automation, a South Australian hospital commissary produces 25,000 frozen meals per eight hour shift
FOOD ENGINEERING, November 1963