THE adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) within production lines has been tipped by experts at Ishida Europe to be one of the top priorities for food manufacturers this year.
Ishida is reporting a ‘spike’ in interest in this technology, particularly around quality control and improving performance in food manufacturing factories.
Ian Hodgson, systems general manager at Ishida Europe, and a team of specialists from across the business have started responding to growing interest in the implementation of AI from those looking to combat rising energy costs, labour shortages, and other supply chain issues.
Ian said, “We are speaking to food manufacturers every day, from global conglomerates through to start-ups, and almost everyone we have spoken to is interested in leveraging AI to help their business and food production lines to perform better.
“Reducing downtime, maximising throughput and improving OEE are especially high on food manufacturers’ agendas going into 2025. Generative AI is perfectly positioned to help with these goals. This form of AI is advancing rapidly and means food manufacturers can rely on software capable of automatically tapping into an ever-expanding knowledge base, feeding back on production issues, and potentially solving these issues without an operator’s intervention.”
Ishida Europe unveiled its new AI-enabled remote monitoring and production software, Sentinel 5.0 at the Gulfood Manufacturing exhibition in Dubai. Sentinel 5.0 leverages generative AI to offer predictive maintenance and troubleshooting solutions.
Ian added, “The new Sentinel 5.0 production monitoring platform can learn the normal behaviour of your machines, send alerts for deviations, and even detect cross-machine issues if one problem affects others in the line.”
