Ovine spinal cord removal

Summary

​Background
Spinal cord material can be a specified risk material (SRM) in some export markets. High quality bovine and ovine production requires the primal and sub primal pieces to be free of high risk tissues such as spinal cord. In many plants after the breakup of carcasses, primal pieces are trimmed to meet customer specification and between 10%-15% of a butchers time as a knife hand is spent separating and disposing of the spinal cord per piece.
However, an automated processing option does not currently exist for spinal cord removal in lamb or beef carcases.  Currently the manual process is extremely in labour intensive and requires skilled labour to effectively remove affected material.  Another issue with current manual methods of removing spinal cord from lamb carcases is the lack of certainty containing the contaminated material and ensuring it is safely removed from the process.  There have been several unsuccessful earlier attempts (using other methods) to collect and safely contain spinal cord from lamb carcases.
Research

These projects covered development of an improved tool and/or automated solution to perform robotic spinal cord removal for beef and sheep processing, replacing current manual operations. This addressed the key issues of being able to consistently and fully remove spinal cord material including duramata throughout the entire length of the spinal cord and to ensure this specified risk material (SRM) is disposed of correctly avoiding contamination during the slaughter process prior to inspection.
Beef project A.TEC.0088 (2013)
Proposed automation of this process must be able to detect spinal cord profile accurately for the extraction process to be completed using suitable tooling. This project addressed these key issues by confirming spinal cord location and path for robot operations, and by developing and trialling a suitable spinal cord extraction tool robotically.  
It was anticipated that successful completion of this work would lead to development of a fully automated spinal cord removal system utilising 3D sensing and a spinal cord removal tool with vacuum extraction to clean and remove spinal cord material throughout the length of the exposed spinal cord robotically.
Sheep project A.TEC.0099 (2014)
The scope of this project was to build and test a prototype hand operated cord removal tool, with an off-the-shelf vacuum system, to remove cord from the spinal column of a whole lamb carcass just before the end of the slaughter line.  
Sheep project P.PIP.0289 (2012)
This project investigated the application and development of a novel spinal cord extraction method utilising compressed air.  An alternative approach involved the use of a surgical suction extraction tool.
The ovine spinal cord removal system was supplied by FPE and installed in Cobram, Victoria. The machine clearly demonstrated the ability to cleanly and effectively remove the spinal cord from lamb loin pairs.
Slight modification of the nozzle location into the spinal cavity was completed to improve the operator speed.
Outcomes (sheep)
As a result of project P.PIP.0289 all spinal cord was totally eliminated from the process area.  While removal of spinal cord may contribute to enhanced shelf-life, there currently is no requirement to remove spinal cord for smallstock processing.  As a result of the project the technology was not subsequently adopted by a commercialiser.  Currently no commercial units are in operation.  
Outcomes (beef)
After the A.TEC.0088 industry funded project investigated best options for a robotic system based on existing manual spinal extraction tools, further stage 2 project with AMPC "Beef Spinal Cord Removal Stage 2 Process Risk and Benefits" focussed on testing of high pressure water influence on quality etc. This proved successful - next stage of development is being reviewed by the potential commercialiser.