A recent cover of The New Yorker shows a crowded sidewalk during morning rush hour. However, it’s not people looking at their i-Phones or drinking coffee, but robots on their way to work. The only human is a panhandler at their feet, being tossed nuts and bolts. When many think of automation or robotics, this...
A recent cover of The New Yorker shows a crowded sidewalk during morning rush hour. However, it’s not people looking at their i-Phones or drinking coffee, but robots on their way to work. The only human is a panhandler at their feet, being tossed nuts and bolts.
When many think of automation or robotics, this is the scene they picture, technology putting people out of work.
However, those of us in the meat industry know better. With a long-term shrinking labor pool of those willing to work in a processing plant, automating your plant isn’t taking jobs away, it’s saving jobs by allowing your plant to stay open.
More importantly, the use of automation and robotics is making for a safer working environment. When Costco’s opened its $450 million high-tech US chicken processing plant in March, out of its 1,000 employees – processing 1 million birds a week – it reported only a single COVID-19 case in mid-April. Modern plants in Denmark and elsewhere have reported same.
And remember this, all of these plants were designed when Corona was something you drank.
Joining Meat Talk is Torsten Giese and Ross Townshend of Ishida with their thoughts based on years of experience helping plants automate around the world.
If you’re looking for a New Year’s resolution, make it this: Have 2021 be the year you put automation to work.