Automated Food Assembly Network and Food Manufacturing Engineering Group

ENGINEERING SUSTAINABILITY - MINIMISING WASTE, WATER AND ENERGY USE IN FOOD MANUFACTURE - Part 2

Sustainable value chain analysis - helping the blind to see, Professor Andrew Fearne, Centre for Value Chain Research, Kent Business School, University of Kent.

To create a sustainable consumption chain, cost issues are critical and you need to look at the whole chain. However, there is more to look at than resource allocation, human interactions are important. Relationships along the chain have to move from adversarial to collaborative, the chain has to be rich in information, not fragmented and to be driven by pull from consumers rather than pushed by material flows. Understanding of customer needs is vital. A sustainable value chain needs the collaboration of different stakeholders, analysis of the chain, where is the value created, where can most gains be made? This must be communicated clearly to drive change and the whole chain reviewed to see if objectives were achieved.

Education for a sustainable future Dr Claire Barlow, Institute for Manufacturing, University of Cambridge

What can engineers best gain from University? Students can be taught to think about problems and given a 'toolkit' of principles and a systems approach. Facts and numbers are important to explore problems. Biofuels have been suggested as a quick fix but is a greenwash. Sustainability will require a frugal approach to life, more emphasis on the common good and waste will be unacceptable. Economic analysis will have to be over longer periods. There are many problems requiring analysis, global versus local production is not a simple a problem, as many would like to think. Sustainability requires a systems approach. In Columbia, the Zeri Foundation remediated land with fungi to adjust the acidity of the soil, grew Caribbean pine and this increased the rainfall and water supplies, oil palms were planted and pine resin harvested, this supports 200 workers. Look at the system and see where greatest gains can be made. On energy, a student project saved a UK onion supplier £80,000 by embedding the need for savings in the consciousness of the workers and encouraging savings by allowing the workers to benefit from better social facilities. The first steps may be simple, use these to gain confidence.

Grail Robot Project Geoff Pegman, RURobots Ltd

The average food producer employs about 60 people, these staff are flexible, can cope with chaos, may have single product lines, products have short lives and the industry has orders, not contracts. Factories lack space and IT support. Grail is to provide an intrinsically safe, sensor driven robot than can recover from uncertainty. The robot will be lighter, more energy efficient and with less inertia. It will have scripts with outlines of tasks and work easier in restricted factory space. It is intended for a quick change-over and have hygienic design with fixing that will not penetrate the floor. The attention of the food industry was drawn to the EU Factories of the Future programme on sustainable manufacturing of 6million Euro.

Debate chaired by Mike Dudbridge

Many kinds of waste were identified. They included: ineffective use of labour, waste of time at changeover, waste of space in factories, leading to waste of energy and waste of cleaning water, waste of time in reworking. There is a need to get the system right first time. Who do SMEs approach for advice. Billington's saved a lot of money going to the manufacturing advisory service. To get things right, information must be captured at least on paper, but better real time by computer. There are standard interfaces eg Inova. Lean manufacturing will help competitiveness. Lean manufacturing will be included in the next meeting of FMEG on 17 November 2010.