The right automation system is not necessarily the fastest, newest or most heavily promoted. It is the system that solves a defined production problem safely, hygienically and consistently without creating a larger problem elsewhere on the line.
Food manufacturers often begin with a machine specification. A better starting point is the business constraint. Is the site losing output through an unreliable manual stage? Is product giveaway too high? Is labour difficult to recruit for repetitive work? Are changeovers too slow? Is traceability fragmented? Is a safety risk being controlled mainly through behaviour?
Once the problem is defined, the manufacturer can judge whether automation is the right response and what the system must prove before purchase.
Define the commercial objective first
Automation should have a measurable purpose. That may be increased throughput, improved yield, greater consistency, reduced handling, better traceability, safer operation, lower waste or the ability to produce a new format.
“Modernising the factory” is not a sufficient objective. It is too broad to guide equipment selection or later confirm whether the investment worked.
Record the current baseline. Depending on the project, this may include units per hour, labour hours, downtime, changeover time, giveaway, rejects, energy use, cleaning time, safety incidents and maintenance cost. The baseline should reflect normal production rather than one unusually good or bad shift.
The system specification can then describe the required outcome and the conditions under which it must be achieved.
Understand the product before the machine
Food is not a uniform industrial component. It can be sticky, fragile, abrasive, wet, oily, frozen, variable in size or sensitive to temperature. A machine that handles one formulation well may struggle when fat content, viscosity, coating or shape changes.
Give suppliers representative product data and real samples. Include the full range, not only the easiest product. If the line must handle several pack sizes, recipes or allergens, the test programme should cover those variations.
The environment matters as well. Wet-cleaned high-care production has different requirements from dry ingredient handling. Washdown pressure, cleaning chemicals, ambient temperature, condensation, dust and corrosive ingredients can affect materials, sensors, enclosures and maintenance.
Hygienic design must be part of performance
A food machine is not successful if it meets its production rate but cannot be cleaned reliably.
Hygienic design should reduce places where food, water or cleaning chemicals can collect. Surfaces should be accessible, suitable for the product and cleaning regime, and arranged to support drainage. Hollow sections, poorly finished welds, inaccessible fasteners and difficult-to-remove belts can add cleaning time and contamination risk.
The European Hygienic Engineering and Design Group describes hygienic design as a risk-based approach to preventing food contamination. Its guidance emphasises that poorly designed equipment is difficult to clean and that hygienic requirements should be considered during design, construction and installation.
Ask the supplier to demonstrate cleaning and inspection, not simply provide a statement that the machine is “food grade”. Confirm which parts can be removed, how long strip-down takes, whether tools are needed, where product can accumulate and how reassembly errors are prevented.
Cleaning validation should be developed with the site’s technical and hygiene teams. The machine must fit the existing allergen, microbiological and environmental controls.
Treat machinery safety as a buyer responsibility
A conformity mark and declaration are important, but they do not remove the operator’s duty to make sure the equipment is safe in its actual workplace.
The Health and Safety Executive states that work equipment must be suitable for its intended use, maintained in a safe condition, inspected where necessary, and used by people who have received adequate information, instruction and training. Appropriate controls can include guards, interlocks, emergency stops and safe isolation.
Food factories need particular attention around cleaning, blockage removal, blade changes, maintenance and fault recovery. These are foreseeable activities, not unusual exceptions. A guard that is constantly removed for hygiene access can create a practical conflict if the design has not considered both cleaning and safety.
The HSE notes that conveyors are involved in a significant share of machinery accidents in the food and drink industries and highlights trapping points, in-running parts and cleaning as common risks. A line design should therefore cover interfaces between machines, not only the safety of each standalone unit.
Before purchase, confirm the current conformity requirements for the market in which the machinery will be supplied and used. In Great Britain, current government guidance recognises both UKCA and CE routes for relevant machinery, subject to the applicable product rules and documentation.
Check the whole line, not the isolated machine
A machine may achieve its rated speed in a supplier’s test area and still reduce output when connected to the factory line.
The upstream process must feed it consistently. The downstream process must accept its output. Buffers, conveyors, accumulation, reject handling, inspection equipment and pack presentation all affect the result.
Ask how the system behaves when the preceding machine stops, when a pack is missing, when a sensor fails or when product arrives outside tolerance. A line that repeatedly stops because one machine has no controlled response to variation may deliver less useful capacity than a slower but more stable system.
Controls integration is equally important. Confirm how the machine will communicate with existing PLCs, manufacturing systems, printers, checkweighers, metal detectors, vision systems and traceability software. Agree data ownership, access permissions, cybersecurity responsibilities and the support available if software becomes obsolete.
Make changeovers part of the test
Food factories rarely run one product indefinitely. Changeover performance can determine whether an apparently efficient system works commercially.
Test the full changeover from the last good product of one run to the first good product of the next. Include cleaning, mechanical adjustment, recipe selection, label or coding changes, checks and start-up waste.
Record which settings are automatic and which depend on operator judgement. Clear, repeatable settings reduce the risk of one experienced employee becoming the only person who can make the line run properly.
Where allergens are involved, the changeover design must support the site’s segregation, cleaning and verification requirements. Faster is only better when safety and product integrity remain controlled.
Demand meaningful factory and site acceptance testing
A factory acceptance test should recreate the agreed operating conditions as closely as practical. It should use representative products and packaging, run for long enough to expose instability, and measure the performance criteria written into the contract.
The test should cover throughput, rejects, giveaway, alarms, stops, recovery, cleaning access, safety functions, changeovers and data outputs. Short demonstrations using carefully selected product are not a substitute for an agreed test protocol.
Site acceptance testing should then confirm performance after installation in the real environment. Utilities, floor levels, temperature, staffing, upstream variation and local integration can all produce a different result from the factory test.
Define what counts as acceptance, what corrective work is required, who pays for retesting and what happens if the system does not meet the specification.
Look beyond the purchase price
The lowest quotation can become the most expensive option when spare parts, cleaning time, service travel, software licences and downtime are included.
Review the total cost of ownership. This should include installation, utilities, guarding, extraction, drainage, training, planned maintenance, consumables, spares, calibration, software, support and expected equipment life.
Ask for critical spare-parts recommendations and typical lead times. A low-cost component can cause a major loss if it is unavailable for several weeks.
Support should match the site’s operating pattern. A factory running nights and weekends needs a different service arrangement from a single-shift operation. Remote diagnostics may help, but only if access is secure and the supplier has people available to act on the information.
Involve the people who will use it
Engineering, production, hygiene, technical, health and safety, IT, finance and operators see different risks. Involving them early produces a stronger specification and reduces resistance after installation.
Operators can identify awkward handling and likely misuse. Hygiene teams can expose cleaning problems. Technical teams can assess allergen and contamination control. Maintenance can challenge component access and spare availability.
This is not design by committee. One person still needs to own the project and make decisions. The purpose of wider involvement is to identify practical failures before they are built into the line.
Choose evidence over promises
The most useful supplier evidence comes from comparable applications. Ask where the machine is handling a similar product, pack format, speed and cleaning regime. References should be relevant rather than simply well-known.
A trial with your own product is stronger than a video. A written performance specification is stronger than a sales claim. A defined acceptance test is stronger than a general promise of efficiency.
The final decision should balance commercial return, food safety, machinery safety, reliability, flexibility, support and implementation risk. Automation works best when it is treated as a complete production-system change, not the delivery of a single piece of equipment.
This article provides general information and is not engineering, legal or food-safety advice. Specialist assessment is required for individual machinery and factory projects.
REFERENCES
1. Health and Safety Executive, Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 overview:
https://www.hse.gov.uk/work-equipment-machinery/puwer-overview.htm
2. Health and Safety Executive, Food processing machinery:
https://www.hse.gov.uk/food/safety-hazards/machinery.htm
3. Health and Safety Executive, Buying new machinery:
https://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/indg271.htm
4. GOV.UK, Placing UKCA or CE marked products on the market in Great Britain:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/ukca-marking-conformity-assessment-and-documentation
5. European Hygienic Engineering and Design Group, Hygienic Design Principles:
6. Food Standards Agency, Food hygiene for businesses:
