Page 33 - Food&Drink magazine July 2021

QHow did Industry 4.0 help you during COVID-19?
The pandemic has driven us to proactively address the changing marketplace in terms of supporting our customers while minimising risk to them and our employees.
Technologies such as MS Teams and Zoom have helped us to maintain customer contact, support operations, field service, spare parts shipments, and ensure our manufacturing capability.
Customercameraoptions
such as GoPro for both pre-delivery inspections and site visits have been used to assist with social distancing and gaining virtual site access during times of restricted travel.
In close partnership with our customers, we have expedited our development of remote testing, sales, training and service capabilities, which have allowed us to meet our customers new product/project needs while supporting the tens of thousands of machines we haveinstalledaroundtheglobe.
QWhat has been the
biggest challenge in designing and producing processing equipment that
has the capability of hardware and software integration?
Over the past five years, the integration and networking space has evolved rapidly and continues to do so.
One of the biggest challenges is keeping up with trends and the speed at which new equipment and systems become out of date orobsolete.
FAR LEFT: Always improving, the risk of equipment becoming obsolete is real. LEFT: Automation can put the crunch in your crisps.
You must keep up as there is potential to lose scalability and networking capabilities which newer systems include as standard. This then flows on to the end user’s ability to integrate the equipment into their plant systems.
We have found that by keeping up with technology, devices are more easily integrated into a control system and by taking advantage of
this we are able to reduce engineering and provide accesstomoredata. ✷
INDUSTRY 4.0
Expertise - Passion - Automation
Your production. Your way.
Choose the motor that is best for you! Introducing the new motorless electric cylinder from SMC
SMC - more than pneumaticsDiscover the freedom of choice. SMC Corporation Australia | New Zealand Group
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www.foodanddrinkbusiness.com.au | July 2021 | Food&Drink business | 33