Bakery Automation and Information Management, a world to gain!

12 years ago I left the bakery industry and recently I returned. After four months, and after spending a few days at the Interpack trade fair 2017, I am glad to be back with 12 years of knowledge to share. Although a lot has changed in the Industry, the level of bakery automation and information management did not. My promise is that in 12 years from now it will be changed!

Today’s level of Bakery Information Management

Information management throughout a complete supply chain is something that is very common in several industries nowadays. Take the Dutch dairy industry; when big supermarkets have actions planned in two months, the dairy farm also sees this in their planning without having any direct contact through the supply chain.

In the bakery industry, nowadays we still need paper printouts and human intervention to start a production line and produce according to a planned order. After that the same is needed to get the right label on the packaging and the pallet.

Bakery Automation; what can we gain?

Let us start within the physical walls of a bakery; from an ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system in which you have master data management (customer, people, products, bakery ingredients, equipment etc.) to the work floor and the PLC’s of the production lines. All of this should and can be linked to each other. Not always to replace people, but to help them and to guarantee the needed quality.

Besides this downstream (from ERP to work floor) information flow, we need to arrange the upstream flow of management information to steer and correct on the bakery efficiency.

The above cycle for process control is 50 years old already, but let us get it installed in the information stream of the bakery:

If you have your process data under control, then you will have continues improvement with a closed circuit of the right information from ERP to MES (Manufacturing Execution System) to PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) and back!

It is not as simple as it sounds but definitely possible! I would like to help you with this challenging task of bakery automation, so you can insure the continuous improvement of the cycle of quality and efficiency in your bakery (and I can fulfill my promise ☺).

Note: In the future you can expect more blog articles from me about Bakery Automation and Information Management and Operations improvement