A survey of automation practices in the food industry

Over the last few years, the food manufacturing industry has experienced un precedented growth and became one of the major forces in the US economy. So me recently published surveys [N.A. Aly, A survey on the use of computer-in tegrated manufacturing in food processing companies, Food Technol. 43 (3) ( 1989) pp. 82-87; R.H. Care, W.E. Morgan, Trends in process control and inst rumentation, Food Technol. 43 (7) (1991) 62 66] indicate that the food indu stry has been rather slow to adopt new automation technologies, yet conside ring utilizing such technologies in the near future. A nationwide scientifi c survey of US food manufacturers was conducted to better determine the cur rent state of automation in the food industry. The survey also included sys tem integrators and equipment suppliers that sell goods and services to US food manufacturers. It has been determined that although there has been a s ignificant increase in food process automation over the last decade, the cu rrent level of automation is extremely variable. Larger manufacturing plant s al-e generally better automated and have less desire for future technolog ical evolution. Equipment suppliers and system integrators are more advance d in the held of food process automation, but this advancement is seldom us ed due to food industry's low demand for advanced technologies. (C) 2001 El sevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.