EIGHT SECONDS is the time between each pork carcass arriving at the cutting room of a modern slaughterhouse. Weight, fat, muscle and other parameters must be measured on each carcass in real time to establish the price paid and ensure the quality of the meat. Our mandate was to increase the production capacity of the infrastructure by simplifying data collection.
The pork industry is made up of hog farmers, slaughterhouses and plants that transform the meat into a consumer product for sale in grocery stores. Our customer operated a hog slaughterhouse. The carcasses, traveling suspended from a ceiling rail, pass 4 computer-equipped stations. The first is the viscera inspection station. At this station, the operator inspects the viscera of each pig circulating in trays side by side with him, to detect the presence of diseases or abscesses that might require the removal of part of the animal or its comdamnation, before any further treatment. The second station is the electronic scale, where the animal is weighed in preparation for assessing the amount paid, combined with the other data entered. At the third station, the operator measures the percentage of muscle and fat with a probe that pierces the animal at a precise point between the ribs. Finally, the fourth station is a veterinary deviation rail, where all pigs with anomalies detected in the first station are sent, in order to proceed with ablations, applying discount codes, reducing the price paid or even carcass condemnation codes, and producing the veterinary documentation justifying the choices made.
Originally, for each of these 4 stations, an attendant was assigned to fill in the data on numbered cards in pen, and in the evening another attendant compiled these cards.
Our solution
We designed data entry and processing software that eliminated the need for 4 data entry clerks on the factory floor, and reduced the amount of compilation work in the office by 90%. The project involved installing an industrial computer at each of the 4 workstations. We connected station 2 to the electronic scale for automatic weight sampling. The fat probe was connected to the computer at the third workstation, also for automated data entry. Touch-screen menus were designed for each station. Software for communication with the corporate database was developed for bidirectional exchanges.
Benefits
Thanks to our software, the 4 data entry clerks could be reassigned to more productive tasks. The data required to transmit payment for hog purchases was no longer late, as was often the case, saving the associated penalties. This has resulted in savings of over 190,000$ per year in wages and the consequences of errors and late payment at the electronic auction. Thanks to this automation, the customer was able to switch from a 30-second carcass to an 8-second carcass, without changing buildings.
