Unlocking Hidden Productivity in Food & Drink Manufacturing
Automation by the Hour:
Unlocking Hidden Productivity in Food & Drink Manufacturing
In food and drink processing, every minute counts. Yet across the sector, skilled people are often tied up with low-value tasks— moving ingredients, carrying packaging materials, or transporting finished goods between lines. These short interruptions feel minor, but across an entire site they add up to lost shifts of production every week.
It’ s a challenge faced well beyond the food industry. In one medical equipment factory, for example, welders were found to spend just 10 minutes of every hour at their stations, with the rest lost to material handling. A single autonomous vehicle was introduced to manage those movements, tripling productive time and output— without adding staff. The same principle applies on a beverage filling line or in a packaging hall: when robot workers take over the walking and waiting, throughput rises dramatically.
A similar issue was uncovered in a cushion factory, where 50
18 FDPP- www. fdpp. co. uk machinists spent a few minutes each hour walking materials across the floor. It didn’ t seem significant— until the figures were calculated. Those short trips added up to more than 30 lost hours every day, the equivalent of four extra employees. When transport was automated, the machinists got their time back for skilled work, and overall productivity soared.
These hidden inefficiencies are common in food and drink production, yet they’ re often accepted as part of the job. With the UK industry under pressure from labour shortages, rising costs, and increasing product complexity, such wasted time is costing manufacturers billions in lost output.
Why isn’ t automation already everywhere?
Three barriers traditionally hold food and drink manufacturers back:
• High upfront costs – capital expenditure is difficult to justify.
• Complexity – fast-moving, hygiene-sensitive environments make integration daunting.
• Uncertainty – fear of choosing the wrong solution or struggling to prove ROI.
Traditional automation can feel like a gamble: big outlay, uncertain payback, and the risk of idle equipment.
A new approach: Automation by the Hour
Instead of heavy capital investment, Automation by the Hour allows manufacturers to pay only for the hours a robot worker is in use. Systems are deployed and fine-tuned on site, and if they aren’ t the right fit, you simply walk away— no strings attached.
Better still, the risk is shared. If a robot worker saves you six hours of labour, you only pay for three— and keep the rest as pure productivity gain.