.PIP.0772 - Leap4Beef – Industry Beef Boning Automation Learnings from Program and Recommendations for Ongoing Development

Summary

The Teys-MLA Beef Boning Automation program commenced in 2018 as a collaborative program between MLA and Teys Australia. Its purpose was to develop the world’s first automated beef boning system - leveraging lamb boning automation. For the industry, this was an opportunity to revitalise Australia’s competitive status domestically and abroad, to improve boning accuracy and efficiency, and to deal with the increasing difficulty of labour shortages which only became more apparent through the pandemic of COVID-19. For MLA, this was an opportunity to develop a system with specifications and price appropriate for widespread adoption.

This report summarises key learnings, highlights pivots in development approaches to delivering program strategy and makes recommendations for the next stages of the program.

Objectives

​Establish a BBA R&D room for Phase 1 and subsequent phases

​Designed, developed, installed and commissioned an Automatted Beef Primal cutting System with solutions developed that:  

- ​Prioritise the automation of beef boning based on commercial risk and reward drivers.   

​- Consider the broader industry processing environments and adapt solutions to address the majority of needs in order to enhance adoption likelihood.

- ​Undertake as many of the beef side 12 cutting lines as possible.

​- Automate support processes such as handling and sortation where it delivers a viable direct benefit or is an enabler of other viable automation processes ​.

Key findings

The final output of this program was to achieve commercial installation with a benefit estimated at between $29 and 65/hd. Sensitivity analysis of market price fluctuations are accounted for within the program. Changes in pricing of secondary cuts impacts on the value delivered from cut accuracy, as does the combination of cutting specifications by market and carcase type. Return on investment is updated after each experiment, driving the design towards commercially viable options.

The progression of R&D towards successful commercial automation are expected to deliver the following benefits:

1. The middle holds 84 % of the capturable value for automating beef cutting processes.

2. The capturable value of beef automation is mostly found in driving accuracy improvements.

3. Continually tightening labour availability make beef automation even more significant so assistive technologies for shoulder and hindquarter boning should be a key part of the future program of work.

Benefits to industry

Return on Investment is less than 3 years - This program can provide a processor $29/head benefit, up to $65/head. The specific benefit per head is plant dependent and dependent upon the cost of install, so any further detail requires a tailored analysis. The challenges still to be solved are in identifying and delivering the best designs to extract that value.

MLA action

Program management should continue by MLA in collaboration with AMPC and with the input of a number of processors and service provider. It is recommended that a dedicated project management service provider manage the groups of service providers and present the results of their development to the steering group. The key requirement of this oversight is the consolidation of learning and positive challenge of approaches from multiple service providers with different or complementary capabilities towards commercial solutions.

Future research

As the program continues, it needs to use the methods intended in the original Teys-MLA contract, with changes in stakeholder management, a more structured approach to the test & learn process that is not rushed through tight delivery timeframes that have undefined challenges, and a return to modular system design. Next stages of work should consolidate the learnings to date and priorities development of some needed capabilities with a modular approach.