Minimizing software incompatibilities will take some organization and planning.

Beyond the normal process measurements needed to check that production is on track, analytical instrumentation can track important variables that can keep difficult-to-control processes on track.

It wasn’t that long ago that a guru was needed to plan production for products based on manually recorded sales and inventory levels.

If you’ve ever played “Whac-A-Mole” on the boardwalk or at an arcade, you can get a sense of the frustration that both food and beverage processors and architecture/engineering/construction (AEC) firms are feeling in today’s economy—fix one problem, another pops up.

Packaging for alt proteins must be protective and creative to succeed.

Plan to build an architecture that will grow with your needs.

Like a 15th century expression, “Children should be seen but not heard,” artificial intelligence (AI) is typically an embedded software technology that operates quietly behind the scenes keeping a production or packaging system running smoothly—and is silent unless something goes out of control and is not easily corrected. Then, the system sounds an alarm, possibly shutting down the process until the problem—which AI has already identified—is remedied by humans. 

AI is a must to improve process quality, save energy and maintain equipment.

In February we looked at the available tools to track and trace products throughout the supply chain; that is, what occurs outside a manufacturing facility. But what about keeping track of products within the confines of the plant? That is: Ingredients that come in the door, are combined in a recipe and go out the loading docks. What happens within a facility is easy to track, right?