Robotic Sheep Kidney Fat Removal System

Summary

The production profit of the meat industry is constrained by global market competition, and improvements to OH&S and labour savings have long been pursued by industry.

To regain industry competitiveness and maintain a high standard of safety and quality, robotic and automatic operations have been introduced to production floors in recent years by the meat industry. The removal of kidney fat in the sheep meat production line was identified as a possible task to automate due to its repetitive but mechanical operation. The variation of animal size and variety creates an unrestricted environment, which becomes a challenge to robotic applications.

Objectives

This project was a collaboration between MLA, AMPC CRF PTY Ltd and Food Science Australia to determine the suitability of automating the kidney fat removal process.

Key findings

• The project with its R&D activities and innovation pursuit has generated three potential patents which have no prior claim.
• Developers have gained comprehensive understanding and knowledge of the environment of the sheep industry and animal characteristics in the production line.
• The completion of the project has demonstrated the feasibility to achieve the necessary quality to replace the manual operation.
• The rapid development of the system and the direct adoption of the system in o the production line have also indicated the enormous commercial viability.

Benefits to industry

Commercially, if a robotic system is applied practically, one full-time operator can be replaced by the robotic system from the station. Having taken the cost of hardware and maintenance of the robotic system into account, the labour replacement could save between $50,000-80,000 per anum (FAS, proposal 2003).

Socially, based on the direct feedback from operators, the current fat removal process has been described as a tedious and boring task, the repetitiveness of which makes it ideally suited to robotic application and thus improving the satisfaction of the labour force in the red meat industry.

MLA action

Subsequent projects (P.PIP.0194 and P.PIP.0262) led to a production ready system at two processors. The robotic kidney fat removal system was developed in collaboration with MAR and these two large processors, and removed the kidney fat from the carcase prior to the final trim on the slaughter floor.

The system identified the kidney fat and used a vacuum wand to remove the kidney fat from the carcase. A subsequent cost/benefit analysis (P.PSH.0579) identified that the main saving was labour rather than yield, with the system most suited to a large two shift plant.

The system has been technically successful and is now commercially available.

Future research

To further improve the system performance, the following developments are recommended to be investigated:

• innovative nozzle design
• improved vacuum system (higher flow system)
• further software program refinements.