BMC Auto Sheep Evisceration study

Summary

Background
Evisceration, or removal of carcase organs and alimentary canal, is one of the stages in lamb dressing.  Along with many other dressing tasks, it is a repetitive and physically arduous task lending itself to automated machine processing, which provides benefits to the supply chain with processing efficiency, processing consistency, improved shelf life through reduced human contact, improved workplace safety outcomes, and assists with labour supply sustainability.
Research
Early related research (2008) included an evisceration pan table system  (P.PSH.0237), an OH&S focussed feasibility study (A.OHS.0056) and an adjustable height evisceration table (P.PIP.0133).
Various service providers were funded to investigate or develop early prototypes for evisceration automation. These included:A 2008 auto sheep evisceration study  (A.TEC.0054) with BMC.A 2009 feasibility study (A.TEC.0063) as a collaboration between Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA) and the Danish Meat Research Institute (DMRI).A 20011 proof of concept (A.TEC.0075) with Machinery Automation and Robotics (MAR) as part of their lamb dressing suite of solutions.
Independently MIA and Milmeq in New Zealand also funded development of an evisceration technology.
Outcomes
Several cost/benefit analyses and investigations of the value proposition for this area have been carried out (A.TEC.0046, A.CIS.0027) with the latter providing the most up to date assessment of this technology option.
This compared the potential Australian based solutions (under development by MAR) with the system developed by MIA in conjunction with Milmeq and operating in New Zealand.  The evisceration processes, carcase specification and dressing standards are somewhat different between the two countries and the aim of this study was to investigate which (if any) option should be further funded or adopted.
Conclusions were as follows:The NZ technology is directly transferable to Australian processors in terms of technical capability and both the Australian and New Zealand solutions were technically viable.The fundamental driver for automating evisceration in lambs is to reduce labour and eliminate OH&S risks associated with the current manual process. However, the automated NZ process removes the thin skirt on the slaughter floor (compared to leaving intact in Australia) impacting on carcase yield more than the OH&S benefits.  Depending on each Australian plants livestock purchasing methods and boning and sales processes, this yield difference has significant positive or negative impact on commercial viability of this automation solution with return on investment ranging from negative to 0.5 years.Only companies running two shifts with trays already under the chain, and boning more than 85% of carcases slaughtered should expected return on investment of less than 1.5 years using evisceration automation.
Because of the limited number of processing scenarios where evisceration automation would be viable, MLA has not funded further development in this area.