Summary of Research Findings

Compared to other manufacturing sectors or other industries, the food manufacturing industry is highly labor intensive. However, due to the serious manpower shortage, the number of companies considering the implementation of robots, automation by machines, and manpower-saving by the use of IoT/AI is increasing.

When it comes to manpower saving by robot installation, attention is often given on the automation of an operation such as a “dish-up” process of ‘obento’ (lunchboxes). Nevertheless, quite a few technical issues are piled up for full-automation of this task, and making it practical is likely to take some time. On the other hand, introduction of robots in the downstream processes (packaging, packing in the cardboard boxes, palletizing, etc.) is proceeding. Thus, it is efficient to save labor by starting from machine-replaceable processes and to allocate human workers at more delicate processes that require human hands. To implement automation by use of robots and pursue manpower-saving, the entire food industry must become accustomed to the robots, and each company should become capable of determining in which operation is effective to use the robots. 

Noteworthy Topics

Food Manufacturing Plants Using Robots Up 10 Points-Plus from 2017

According to the result of the questionnaire research on the domestic food manufacturers, 50.4% of the respondents, approximately half of the companies, answered that they “have already introduced robots”. This was up by 13.6 points from 36.8%, the result of the survey conducted in 2017.

Furthermore, it was found that regarding to the specific application of the robots in production process, in majority cases they were installed in the downstream processes such as packing, packaging, and palletizing.

Research Outline