With the motto “Global IT Excellence for the Smart Meat Factory”, the industry expert will be represented at stand B-81 in hall 11.1. Sarah Vanessa Kröner, member of the board of directors of CSB-System AG, explains: “The international meat industry is eagerly awaiting the IFFA 2016 with its focus on ideas, concepts and trends for the years to come. We will show concrete step-by-step approaches for establishing the Smart Meat Factory.”

A quick glance at the vision of networked production: While today industrial systems are still controlled from one central point, the future will see intelligent manufacturing systems with communication between machines, equipment and products.

The software, image processing and automation solutions by CSB successfully manage this digital transformation. The ERP system, which will also be available from the cloud, takes over a key function. Being a data management system, it not only administrates master data and transaction data, but also product data, machine data and process data without any redundancies. This facilitates the consistent use of the data in all applications throughout the entire order processing flow, for example in customer relationship management, production planning, picking or business intelligence. It is mainly the integration of ERP system and manufacturing execution system that smooths the transition towards the independent production facility. It establishes the connection between business management and production control and simplifies machine-to-machine networking. “Even in the age of the Smart Meat Factory will the ERP system continue to be the IT backbone of the enterprise”, says Kröner.

Fully automated image processing systems, as demonstrated at the CSB stand D-70 in hall 11.1, are also key components in the context of Industry 4.0. The CSB-Vision product line has been developed to optimize the use of raw materials. In the meat industry, this is critical to success due to the fact that here, the costs for input material are much higher than in most other sectors. Moreover, using fully automated analysis and valuation methods improves the quality of the final products and increases the added value. One example for the new possibilities of computer-aided image processing is the visual and perfectly hygienic grading of pig carcasses with a completely automated classification process. Any pertinent data are directly documented in the CSB ERP software. The ground-breaking methods also comprise the entirely automatic identification, sorting and routing of items by means of image analysis, for example at the cutting exit or at the entry of meat production as well as for the quality assessment of raw materials. While tests performed by humans are prone to errors, this solution guarantees constant and consistent quality measurements.

CSB’s third key topic at this year’s IFFA relates to integrated automation solutions for production and intralogistics. The focus is on solutions with a high level of integration and automation - from innovative storage systems via flexible, fully automatic picking on limited space up to controlling high-performance machine and system environments. CSB linecontrol optimally links production and packaging machines in the sense of Industry 4.0. With the control station module, you can monitor the machines and facilities in use from beginning to end and ensure optimal utilization of the capacities. This in turn minimizes production stops and downtimes. As a result, the equipment effectiveness remains at a constantly high level, as is demonstrated at the IFFA stand of the Robotik-Pack-Line.