Spine Machine Fopment (Syndicated)

Summary

Y cutting is so named as it is a "Y" shaped cut as the first incision on the lamb or sheep carcase to begin the opening up process so as to remove the pelt from the carcase.

An automated robotic Y cutter has been available in New Zealand for some time, but commercial take up of the technology in Australia has been unsuccessful to date. This is primarily because of the differences between Australia and New Zealand carcass specifications (e.g. variability in carcase weights and sizes, no washing prior to slaughter etc).

A series of facilitated adoption projects have been funded to address these technical issues and provide a viable solution for Australian processors.

Objectives

The objectives of the project was to further develop and demonstrate the Industrial Research Limited Automated Y-Cutter to Australian conditions and demonstrate the system working in an Australian processing site – Southern Meat and Goulburn (NSW) was selected as the demonstration site.

Key findings

With the improved tool design, the processing success rate in trails (the percentage of animals successfully process) was improved from 95% to as high as 99% for lambs and established at about 93% for mutton.

Furthermore we strongly believe we have enough understanding of Australian processing conditions to bring mutton to a similar percentage to lambs.

The importance of going from 95% to 99% on lambs cannot be understated. From the viewpoint of the butchers downstream this is a fivefold improvement because there is one-fifth the number of misses. If this is achieved consistently it allows the plant to reallocate manpower more easily.

The project resulted in a successful demonstration of the potential of the system. A video has been produced to promote to the PIPs.

Benefits to industry

The installation of the Y-Cutter system at a red meat processing plant has the potential to deliver the following=significant Economic, OH&S and operational benefits;

• labour – 2-3 operators per working shift
• OH&S – No injuries or accidents reported since installation Jan 2005
• pelt improvement – improved quality and less damage
• improved processing efficiencies – less rework
• improved consistency and quality of carcass dressing
• reduced contamination – test prove reduced contamination compared to manual knife operations.

MLA action

MLA developed a roll out project whereby an Australian robotic company (Machinery Automation and Robotics (MAR) – Clyde Campbell) and Industrial Research Australia would further develop the technology to a commercial stage by conducting a further six installations on sites with different configurations.

An expression of interest letter and CD of the system in operation was sent to 45 small stock processors in Australia. An example letter is attached in Appendix A.

The following sites have been selected to conduct this project with:

• Southern Meats Pty Ltd
• CRF (Colac Otway) Pty Ltd
• Norvic Food Processing Pty Ltd
• Burrangong Meat Processors Pty Ltd
• Fletcher International Exports Pty Ltd
• Tatiara Meat Company Pty Ltd

MLA has initially approved the first two of the six being implemented during the 2004/2005 financial year. At the conclusion of these two the technology will be further evaluated to determine if the technology requires the further development of the remaining six sites.

Future research

MAR will be seeking future development of the Y-Cutter project with other plants.

In particular MAR will work to improve upon the following features and will seek future plant participation to do so:

• increased line speed
• improved efficiency for lamb processing
• sheep processing capability improvements
• Y-Cutter tool development (with Device Works).