The food & beverage manufacturing industry is facing many challenges, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. Infor Asia Pacific and Japan senior vice president and general manager, Terry Smagh, says leveraging new technology, specifically enterprise automation and Artificial Intelligence (AI), will help to address these challenges.
As with many other industries, food & beverage manufacturing is facing serious challenges. The past few years of inflation have put pressure on margin and profitability. There is a labour shortage, which means that finding, and keeping, the right workforce is a challenge. Adding to this are constant supply chain challenges, which consistently make it hard to meet customer demands.
That introduction is painting a pretty dark picture. However, there is light at the end of the tunnel. And that is to leverage new technology, specifically enterprise automation and Artificial Intelligence (AI), to address these challenges. If done right, the result will bring a competitive advantage. A key term is efficiency. Technology will support doing things better, faster, and cheaper. This means that with the same workforce, more can be done, and a company’s talent can instead be used to generate additional value. AI is also a great technology to analyse large amounts of data resulting in insights and predictions across a company’s entire operation.
I believe the future winners will be the ones who embrace and explore this new technology, proactively tackling challenges and use it to create opportunities. The ones who are slow to respond are likely to fall behind.
There are different types of AI, e.g. Machine Learning (ML) and Generative AI (GenAI). They all have their different use cases. ML is great to deploy for custom models tailored to specific manufacturing processes. It can be used to forecast trends, anticipating issues before they impact the business, generating actionable insights and predictions across the entire operation.
Below are a few examples, but far from all, of use cases where AI can be applied successfully:
- Analyse customer feedback, and automate document processing
- Boost revenue by predicting demand, optimising inventory levels, and reducing excess supply. This is even more important when working with products with short shelf life, where fresh is important, since it is a component of the overall quality
- Dynamic best before date: Leverage multiple data points to set the optimal best before date
- Optimising yield by collecting manufacturing parameters, e.g., temperature, humidity, protein and fat content, etc. When all this data is analysed, the machines can identify trends that would take too long for humans to see, and then it would be too late to act on it
- Pricing and product recommendations based on previous purchases, from the specific customer, but also from other customers with similar buying patterns
These are only a handful of examples. There are many more. AI can of course not solve everything, but it is surprising to see how much it can address and the associated positive business impact it generates. If done right, it is also fascinating how quickly these projects can bring value, typically within 60-90 days. It almost sounds too good to be true, but it is not. The reason for that is that companies can leverage AI without having to rebuild their infrastructure.
Success typically comes when industry knowledge is coupled with technology. When we do this together, we manage to optimise the workforce for maximum efficiency, cut costs, and boost employee satisfaction.
Infor is a global leader in business cloud software specialised by industry. Providing mission-critical enterprise applications to 67,000 customers in more than 175 countries, Infor software is designed to deliver more value and less risk, with more sustainable operational advantages.
