Saucecompany in Deurne (NL) produces sauces, marinades and dressings under private label.

In recent years, the company has experienced strong growth, and in terms of utilisation of the machines, the company is reaching its limits. With additional deployment of human capital, which is hard to find, it can only just meet demand and further growth will require investment in additional production capacity. Saucecompany wants to explore a number of solutions that offers sufficient room for further growth. An integral evaluation method must be used to determine the best total solution.

In their S3FOOD exploration project, “Exploration of Smart Digital Technology, Integrally Evaluated”, Saucecompany along with Food Tech Brainport and VHP Human Performance will explore opportunities to use smart digital technology for:

• Recognition of production errors during the filling of sachets in combination with the clean and uninterrupted separation of errors.
• Sensing and data management of production progress, especially for small production orders with many changeovers and associated administrative processes.
• Deployment of robots for packaging and removal of finished goods, especially in the filling lines for small production orders with constantly changing products and repackaging.

Final report summary
Internal interviews and a workshop were conducted to identify challenges and evaluate solutions. The results of the workshop were translated into an integrated plan of actions that the Saucecompany needs to take to address current issues. Topics include equipment, working conditions and profiling the company as an attractive workplace.