Dairy Processing - May/June 2024 - 46

OPERATIONS
have exceeded the level of what workers can do on their own.
" AI is learning and analyzing levels of data that are beyond
human capability, " Jones said. " AI is going to be critical to
making the data more useful and more understandable and
specific to the customer. The customer just gets notifications
that something is wrong with the machine, and that is not a lot
of use for that customer. They want to get more specific, and
that's where the AI comes in. "
The company also offers its ThinkTop control units for
valves to help reduce water usage and waste and maximize
product output.
ANALYZING THE ENTIRE LINE
Dairy processors can integrate automated machinery together
to create an end-to-end operation in which all aspects of
production run together smoothly, thus preventing downtime.
" If you can do that in an end-to-end automated fashion
- which some people are already doing - you mitigate
downtime, because you're controlling the whole process and
those systems are very good at telling you where an issue
happens, " Olson said.
Unscheduled and frequent stops and restarts accelerate
wear on mechanical components over time, said Tom
Wiersma, business development manager for Integrated
Packaging Machinery (IPM), Rockford, Mich. Besides the
abrasive wear on machine centers and conveyor systems
when a packaging line in a dairy processing plant goes down
unexpectedly for any length of time, it's likely the product
will need to be manually removed and hand packed. Any
unplanned shutdown usually has the effect of requiring the
filler to be cleaned, extending the unplanned downtime and
associated costs still further, Wiersma said.
Eliminating unplanned packaging line stops and restarts at
dairy plants is key to mitigating downtime and reducing food
waste and packaging material waste, Wiersma added.
" The right series of integrated OEM-neutral technologies
and expertly designed control solutions are imperative when
it comes to compensating for microstops and eliminating full
stops and abrupt restarts and therefore essential to mitigating
downtime, " Wiersma explained.
A properly engineered high-volume and high-speed
secondary packaging system designed to preserve food
safety, protect brand quality, ensure packaging accuracy and
maximize uptime needs to be conceived as an integrated
ecosystem, Wiersma said.
" The uptime performance of each machine center and
function on the line in the ecosystem is interconnected
with, interacts with and is codependent upon all the
others, " Wiersma said. " Therefore, to mitigate downtime,
the intended performance of each machine center must
be specified, expertly integrated, installed, and automated
in such a way as to optimize the performance of it and the
other inline machine centers and intermachine functions (i.e.
accumulation, metal detection, check-weighing, date-coding,
46 MAY-JUN 2024 | DAIRYPROCESSING.COM
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Dairy Processing - May/June 2024

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