Build your Industry 4.0 vision to reduce waste and ensure food safety

The rise of Industry 4.0 brings promise for a safer, more agile future in the food and beverage industry. But the journey to digital transformation doesn’t come without its own set of challenges. The business environment is changing more rapidly than ever before. To stay competitive and meet the intensifying needs of Industry 4.0, food and beverage companies need to rise to the occasion and make a plan to become digitally connected.

The problem that most organizations encounter when investing in new technology or adopting Industry 4.0 principles is a lack of strategy. Industry 4.0 is the culmination of automation, machine learning, and connectivity that stems from hundreds of years of evolution and three other industrial revolutions. It didn’t happen overnight, and it certainly won’t for your organization, either. The first step is developing your business’ Industry 4.0 vision to address critical challenges in the food and beverage space: reducing waste and ensuring food safety.

Let data power your transformation

The end goal is to use cyber-physical systems, the internet of things (IoT), and networks to predict problems and create a safer environment for your workers and the goods you produce or distribute. Data is a central element of this process. Not only is data the currency of the modern world, it’s fuel for evolution. Your Industry 4.0 vision should be driven by data.

• Step 1: Understand your existing data.
• Step 2: Collect more data using technology like smart sensors to monitor assets.
• Step 3: Store data in a secure data lake.
• Step 4: Utilize your data and take action using AI and machine learning.
• Step 5: Contextualize data to streamline operations using enterprise resource planning systems, supply chain management, and more.
• Step 6: Keep others updated with push notifications or shared dashboards.

Look for opportunities to optimize

Using data as the foundation of your Industry 4.0 vision will provide opportunities for optimization across your entire operation and asset fleet. Monitoring ensures the integrity of your processes and assets, automating things like inspections, equipment life predictions, and damage assessment. Food safety remains top of mind with real-time safety reports, monitoring, and live risk assessment. Reliability and efficiency will witness extraordinary gains, giving teams live access to information on product yields, raw materials, equipment performance, and even product data management.