Producing large-scale products for set markets sounds like a long forgotten paradise – a bygone era unlikely to return.
Why did we ever complain?
Like it or lump it, the days of predictable, uninterrupted mass production are over. The winners are now those who can fail fast and adapt to an ever changing environment without interrupting their primary outputs.
Changing markets require evolved products to meet the consumers with broad taste – this we know. But how do we test and develop products and scale without shutting down our current processes?
Just as we in the food processing industry are adjusting to consumer demands, engineering companies like Daniatech are adjusting to theirs. Developing lab machines that can grind, break down particles, heat and cool, flow vacuum and condensate.
Machines like the Lab Master can replicate the parameters in big machines reducing the time from development to market, and so, new products can be ‘tested before invested.’
Daniatech Lab Master is an example of agility in manufacturing, made for now, the multipurpose mixer unit can be used for a wide range of products suitable for research and development or for smaller manufacturers, who want to move beyond tank and jacket processing, with better product quality.
Key features
• Cooling/heating by dimple jacket/direct steam.
• Integrated vacuum system for liquid/powder transport and deaeration/flash cooling.
• Unique dynamic ShearMasterTM enabling pre homogenization of product and/or soft blending off fragile particle
• Top-mounted agitator with scrapers preventing discolourations and crystallisation inside the vessel
• Integrated process control
Flowtherm’s Business Development Manager – Capital Equipment, Catalina Donato believes this flexibility is part state of mind and part equipment that can turn innovation into reality. “If you’re in the food processing industry and are making hummus, you can buy a large scale machine. That’s fine if you are only making hummus,” she says. “But let’s say the market hanges, and they want sriracha sauce in their hummus or vegan hummus or you want to expand into salsa. You need equipment that has multi-output functionality that can scale when needed.”
“Flexibility is the ability to adapt and capitalise to supply chain issues,” says Donato. “If you’re using sugar syrup, but supply falters and there’s a price surge, lab machines offer the versatility to convert raw sugar material into powders, which can be stored or turned directly into syrup.”
“It’s the ability to adapt to volatility that will be the difference in maintaining production. When we look at the future supply chain, the only thing we can predict is that it will be unpredictable,” says Donato. “Fuel prices, geopolitics and labour shortages all affect how food is being produced. Success is in flexibility, agility and adapting to the market quickly.”
It would be naive to suggest any business can predict the future, but the wise decision making is based on the best information and technology available at the time. This ensures a strong market position and strategy is an agile leading edge.