Meat+Poultry - October 2022 - 26

SOSLAND PUBLISHING
years
Marble Technologies
creates the software
'brains' for hardware to
automate processing tasks,
such as product sorting,
to deliver automated
solutions that can adapt
to the variation in beef
and pork processing.
specifically for these solutions. Funds for
enhancing and growing plant operations are
also available in the form of government grants
while venture capital in agri-food tech has
more than quadrupled in the past five years,
fueling the momentum to back any type of
solutions that address supply chain problems.
He said all the factors are lining up to make
this a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to address
a longtime challenge in the industry and to
boost it forward by 20 years.
" Ten years from now, I want people to look
at the meat industry and talk about it as an
example of automation, " Barbar said.
The most obvious solutions automation
offers processors, for example in the packoff
area of a meat plant is in reducing head
counts but not eliminating humans from the
equation altogether. Instead, Barbar is offering
processors human-in-the-loop automation and
going from 20 to 30 people in a product sorting
area of a primary beef processing operation,
for example, and reducing it to four people.
He pointed out that those four people play
a crucial role in the process because they
serve as quality assurance workers who are
the last line of defense to give products a final
look before boxing and shipping. There is still
much more to the processes than just flipping a
switch and walking away.
" We're still a long time away from this
technology being lights out, " Barbar said.
He said the human factor is a necessary
evil in the meat processing industry, unlike
the automotive industry. Because no two
carcasses are alike, dealing with consistency
can be an automation hiccup, but software and
visioning systems are available to deal with
product variability.
" Where it gets real hard with variability
is not the variability of the product, it's the
variability of the process. What happens on the
26 MEAT+POULTRY | 10.22 | www.meatpoultry.com
fabrication floor is one chaotic process. It's my
argument that it's man-made chaos. It's not,
God-made chaos. That is something we can fix
long term but not Day One. "
He said real-world applications might target
one process, such as trimming on a chuck
line station and either making it completely
automated without humans or use technology
to make the first four trimming cuts and then
conveying that to a single person at the end of
the line to make the final cut or two to ensure
it looks correct.
" I just saved the human four swipes with
a knife, " Barbar said, " but we're still pretty
far from making automation work as well as
humans. Humans are just phenomenal. "
While many meat companies have
converted their inventory system and order
pulling processes to a light's out, human-free
operation, that level of automation can't be
expected on the fabrication side.
Barbar said when it comes to opportunities
for complete automation, " You see bits and
pieces; you see robots here and there in
pork, but still to a large degree, it's pretty
fragmented. You see automation kind of being
sprinkled all over the place, but there's just
not these complete solutions that are mature
enough to go in and solve for the reality of how
these plants work. "
Barbar said the most opportunities are
in retrofitting automation solutions for
existing plants.
" That's where the pain is, " he said. " I can
sit here and design for new facilities, but
I wouldn't really be moving the needle for
the industry. "
Marble's solutions for today address the
packaging area and the pack-off operations.
" I'm going after the end of the process; I'm
going to the front of the process. It's just my best
approach to how do you tackle this beast. "
Marble Technologies
http://www.meatpoultry.com
Meat+Poultry - October 2022

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