A Smart and Flexible Automation System for High Value Cake Manufacturing

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The context within which this project takes place is that of cake production within the food manufacturing industry. The foodindustry generally is worth £96.1bn to the UK economy with Food and Drink Manufacturing providing £26.4bn Gross ValueAdded and employing 395,000 people, and specifically the bakery industry GVA is just under £4bn (Food StatisticsPocketbook, 2012, published by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs). The company within which theresults of this project will be applied, is one of 9,340 food and drink manufacturing sites in the UK. The project involves the partnership of the cake manufacturing company Lightbody, the University of Strathclyde, and the automation companyQuasar.The aim of the project is to investigate, research, and develop a new smart and flexible material handling automationsystem for cakes, icing, and cake decorations. This system will comprise various sensors, software algorithms, andmechatronic hardware in order to create a more efficient and consistent autonomous production method. A major challengewithin the project will be the creation of a novel handling and manipulation system that will be able to cope with the difficultattributes of the cake icing and decorative materials. These can be soft, sticky, brittle, and floppy, all of thesecharacteristics are very difficult for automated manipulator systems to handle.The initial benefits of this project will be to (a) the cake manufacturing company in that the project will increase itsefficiency, reduce its costs, and increase its profitability, (b) the University in that it will expand its knowledge and expertisein this field, be able to provide knowledge exchange, and provide employment and experience for two researchers, and (c)provide the other industrial partner with an opportunity to enhance its experience and knowledge while contributing itsexisting expertise to the success of the task.Further benefits to UK industry in general will result from the knowledge gained from the design of the system tomanipulate the difficult to handle materials. This knowledge should have general applicability not only in the food industrybut also in areas such as clothing manufacture. The developed system will be modular such that elements of the design,e.g. hardware, software, and sensing, will be useable by a range of companies.