P.PSH.1304 - LEAP V - Forequarter integration arm mechanical upgrade to improve accuracy, reliability and uptime

Summary

The lifter/transfer arm is integral to both the reliable removal of the forequarter from the LEAP III primal machine as well as the transfer of forequarters to the LEAP V forequarter bone in processing cells. It is imperative that this mechanism works accurately and reliably at all times as a failure to do so will result in a loss utilisation of all three forequarter processing cells and in extreme cases the operation of the entire LEAP system. The existing design has been in operation for two years in the JBS Brooklyn facility with more than 2 Million carcases processed. As a result of this extended initial period of operation Scott, industry partners and MLA have learned a great deal on the critical performance and an important upgrade has been identified to improve reliability and uptime.

Objectives

The major objectives of this project are:
1. Design and build retrofittable packages for the critical upgrades identified above for existing and future LEAP systems.
2. Demonstrate the upgrades to industry through installation of an existing LEAP system. The final report will detail upgrade packages that have been developed.

Key findings

Two upgrade kits were developed as part of this project which address separate aspects of the forequarter handling and processing in lamb. The mechanical upgrades (LEAP V forequarter integration arm upgrade & LEAP V lifter arm upgrade) addressed reliability issues from previous iterations and improved uptime of the system.

Benefits to industry

The retrofittable upgrades developed in this project represent opportunities for new installations as well as existing sites to improve reliability and uptime. The reduction in rejects of more than 7% of product represents a significant benefit both in terms of value added by the system and in terms of labour savings required for processing rejected product.

The mechanical strengthening and servo motor/gearbox upgrades reduce the likelihood of fatigue-related downtime for the machines. Not only does this reduction in breakdowns improve machine uptime but frees up maintenance staff to address other issues and perform more preventative maintenance instead of addressing unexpected breakdowns. Additionally, with the upgrades in place the system can achieve a reliable 10 carcases per minute and so is able to keep pace with the LEAP III Primal and LEAP IV Middle systems developed by Scott and MLA.

Greenleaf Enterprises Pty Ltd independently audited the LEAP V Forequarter system and found an improvement in gross return per head from $0.17-$0.20 to $0.28-$0.29. For an annual production of 2,122,038 forequarters, this represents a change in net return from $1,708,998–$2,152,479 to a new net return of $3,178,397–$3,351,298.

MLA action

MLA is currently looking at collaborating with Scott Automation & Robotics again for future research projects in the processing productivity area.

Future research

The upgrades developed in this project represent a significant step forward for the LEAP V Forequarter system. To further improve the benefit to industry of the system further improvements could be developed and implemented in new installations or retrofitted as upgrades. Additional improvements are as follows:
- The addition of a load cell in the LEAP V lifter arm. If a load cell is also added to the outfeed of the hindquarters from the LEAP III Primal and the carcase weight is known then the system would be able to send forequarter, middle and hindquarter weights to the processor.
- The integration of AI into the LEAP V forequarter analysis. Recent collaborations between Scott and MLA have shown great promise in integrating AI-based analysis into other LEAP systems.
- The development of the additional cuts that the system could perform. Some processors have indicated they would benefit from the LEAP V Forequarter system being able to perform additional cuts. As part of this development, the shoulder split cut in the LEAP V forequarter system could be further improved to perform blade adjustments from the neck while still positioning the bandsaw blade between forequarter clamp arms.