Plant Focus

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Whether it is beer-makers using treated grey water in their recipes or beverage facilities powering their plants with solar energy, the push to care for the planet’s resources is impacting every category within the beverage industry.

The “Pick-A-Little Talk-A-Little” song in the 1962 musical “The Music Man” features the gossipy, hat-and-feather-wearing matrons of River City, Iowa, telling Professor Harold Hill unsavory things about the town librarian. Although today’s voice picking technology focuses on warehouse operations instead of a library’s “dirty book” selections, the technology is drumming up its own attention thanks to its ability to escalate productivity and accuracy, improve safety and ergonomics, and aid in pickup, delivery and in-store workflows.

“Danger, danger, Will Robinson” was a phrase that the robot frequently uttered to the youngest member of the Robinson family during the mid-1960s TV show “Lost in Space,” about a family whose spaceship crash lands on an alien planet. Although the robots in today’s beverage plants do not display human emotions, robotic systems increasingly are being used in beverage operations to speed up bottling, packing and distribution efforts.

Although the main tasks of a warehouse are to produce and store products, warehouse managers have an even bigger day-to-day goal: safety. For the Industrial Truck Association, safety has taken center stage through its sponsorship of National Forklift Safety Day, which took place June 14.

As speed and efficiency become increasingly important in warehouse operations, the use of automated guided vehicles (AGVs) and other autonomous vehicles continue to proliferate.

With the influx of SKUs and package options within the beverage market, companies are looking for flexible, efficient production line operations.