The latest piece of kit installed at Silver Fern Farms’ Finegand plant has been 18 years in development.
Dubbed LEAP but officially called a Primal, Middle and Forequarter System, it is Scott Automation’s latest iteration of its robotic primal lamb cutting system, which uses the latest imaging technology to replace even more manual cutting and boning roles.
Marthinus Hendriks, Silver Fern Farms’ South Island regional project engineer, says the carcases pass through a DXA Xray that measures bone position and density and shows the robots the optimum places to separate the forequarter, middle and hindquarter.
Forequarters then pass through 2- and 3-D cameras to identify the next cuts, which are determined by the production schedule and markets.
Hendriks says the robot can then remove the neck, strip out the joint or remove the brisket as required.
Similarly, 2- and 3-D imaging of the middle enables robots to remove the flaps or cut the length of ribs to what is required.
This mixture of cuts is then dispatched for packaging or further processing into value-added products.
Humans are still required to bone out the hindquarters as the technology has not been developed to remove the pelvic bone.
Hendriks says the drivers for introducing the technology were to improve health and safety and cutting accuracy to improve meat yield, which ultimately leads to increased revenue.
Plant manager Bronwyn Cairns says the robots replace seven people, who have been deployed elsewhere in the plant.
Introducing the technology ensures consistency of product and yield and its precision will enhance the move to produce more added value product
“We can deliver what we promise and deliver it every time,” Cairns said.
She has worked in the industry for 40 years and was previously a production manager with SFF. She says she never imagined robots performing these tasks.
“The amount of detail and work is so precise, it’s incredible.”
She says the more than $10 million investment is a vote of confidence in the plant, the staff, the sheep meat industry and the South Otago community.
Scott Automation spent the best part of a year at Finegand designing the new version and integrating it into the production process.
Cairns says that happened without incident and with minimal disruption to plant operations.
Andrew Arnold, Scott Automation’s director of meat processing, says there are 18 lamb systems of various configurations in plants in New Zealand and Australia but the Finegand system incorporates a number of new enhancements that improve the accuracy of cutting and the delivery of improved product quality.
Arnold says Scott is developing or has developed new modules for its automated lamb processing systems.
One, which is commercially available as a standalone machine and could eventually be integrated into fully automated systems, automatically removes back straps and tenderloins from the loin.
A new module undergoing trials does not use water to clean fat and intercostal meat off the bone in French racks.
It will be a standalone unit or integrated into automated lamb systems, and Scott has installed and is trialling its first prototype, which he hopes will be commercially available next year.
He did not say what it uses instead of water.
Scott is also developing beef automation with its commercial partner JBS, the Australian Meat Processor Corporation and Meat and Livestock Australia.
Beef automation will, like lamb automation, consist of a number of modules, which will ultimately be integrated into one standalone automated unit, but Arnold says it is too early to reveal any details.
He says this approach de-risks what is a complex development process and allows for commercialisation as each module is developed.
