Research from software provider InfinityQS has suggested that a shortfall in automation of the quality management and data capture methods used by food manufacturers is hampering the sector’s attempts to become full automated.
“Many manufacturers still rely on time-consuming and labour-intensive manual procedures to collect information,” InfinityQS said.
As many as 75% are still using manual systems for their data collection, its survey found, while almost half (47%) still rely on pencil and paper. The research was conducted among 260 manufacturers, including some of the world’s largest organisations.
Further to these findings, 77% of manufacturers surveyed said that they want to adopt automated data collection. This demonstrates respondents’ awareness surrounding the shortcomings of maintaining a manual approach to data collection – a key challenge they face in managing and processing data – the technology company said.
InfinityQS CEO Michael A Lyle explained the challenges that manufacturers face: “The manufacturing sector is facing intense pressure to improve the way it manages product and engineering information from employees, customers, suppliers, and industry collaborators. Traditionally, a lot of information has lived in discrete systems with limited or restricted access. As a result, information can be difficult to find and cumbersome to digest, often supported with labour-intensive, manually operated, data collection procedures.
“Additionally, these data-capture methods are increasingly at risk from human error, and often detract from the real business of innovation, revenue growth, and customer satisfaction due to their time-consuming nature. For many manufacturers, this fact is not lost on them and that is why digital transformation is becoming such a critical conversation.
“Industry research, from the Cloud Industry Forum (CIF), suggests that 71% of firms either already have a digital transformation strategy in place or are in the process of implementing one – this is the same for the manufacturing industry. Changing employee expectations means staff need access to increasingly flexible IT infrastructures. This is particularly apparent in their demand for greater automation of data collection methods.
“The ability to gather and compare quality-related data from multiple sources is vital to making real-time decisions in manufacturing environments. This is something we’ve looked to address with our Data Management System (DMS), which automates information collection by standardising data from multiple sources and then writing that data into a centralised database. In doing so, the risk of variances within the quality-management and data collection procedures is dramatically reduced and therefore, the risk of recalls is also diminished.
“Looking to the future, as manufacturing firms start to reassess their current technological capabilities, the ability to automate critical actions will pave the way for other recognisable benefits such as increasing operational efficiency, improving product quality, and achieving significant cost savings. It’s imperative that organisations look to address this now or risk being left behind by their more tech-savvy counterparts.”
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