Robotics remains in the early stages of implementation into bakeries and snack manufacturing plants. Although robots are being applied in new areas, there are still many processes where robotics could be incorporated in the future as further advances are made.

"Many bakeries have only started to look to robotics in the past few years versus other industries that have been using robotics for decades," said Roland Lomerson Jr., director of automation, AMF Automation Systems, Richmond, VA. "However, the realized need for robotic automation is arguably highest in the food production segment and specifically in the bakery and snack food industries."

Implementing robotics into bakeries is still in its infancy, according to Rick Hoskins IV, vice-president, sales and marketing, Colborne Foodbiotics, Lake Forest, IL. While many large bakers have aggressively installed robots, they still have many applications to go before it would be considered in the mature stage, he added. 

RELIABLE ROBOTICS. Robotics provides automated solutions to many operations that were previously manual jobs, according to Mr. Lomerson. Whereas bakeries have used "hard automation" without robotics for decades, hard automation was limited and unable to

address many of the more complicated tasks. "Robotics gives the baking industry the capability to revisit and solve many of these automation challenges that could not be addressed with hard automation," he said. Read more ......

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