Revolutionizing the Wholesale Baking Industry: The Power of Automation
The worldwide market for baked goods is mammoth and unparalleled. Industry analysts project the bakery industry to exceed $570 billion by 2024, prompting wholesale plant owners to seek out the latest industrial automation solutions to meet increasing customer demands.
The history of automation displays a significant relationship with food manufacturing and, in particular, the baking sector. For decades now, large industrial bakeries have been using mechanical mixers, dough systems, and bread slicing equipment to increase efficiency and reduce workforce overhead.
In the current market, bakeries aren’t simply automating their equipment. Routine, non-revenue generating business procedures like payroll and resource scheduling are increasingly automated to help businesses become even more efficient by saving valuable time and money. Wholesale bakeries are adopting automated software solutions in increasing numbers to improve production management and give operators greater visibility into their operations and more control over their manufacturing plants.
The ways automation tools can be implemented are as numerous as they are diverse. From inventory management and manufacturing execution systems to accounting software and order management platforms, the number of unique solutions wholesale bakery owners can presently take advantage of are infinite. The impulse behind deploying any industrial automated solution is always the same -business owners want to reduce costs and improve efficiency and safety by eliminating mundane and repetitive tasks.
Technology has changed the way wholesale bakeries operate in countless ways. As a result, well-automated production plants have been taking their business to new levels of profitability. Automation software controls help companies minimize their labor costs to leverage increasingly scarce resources while improving accuracy and efficiency.
Let’s delve into a few specific ways automation can benefit your wholesale bakery business:
Increased visibility, traceability, and control
Bakeries that still rely heavily upon manual operations find themselves hampered by clunky spreadsheets, multiple databases, and time-consuming physical inventory counts to keep track of order fulfillment. Automated inventory management software brings your processes under a single umbrella, letting you update your stock levels automatically as each product is ordered and distributed.
A well-designed automated solution gives your operations the additional insight to track stock-outs and excess stock in real-time. This newfound visibility means you can ascertain exactly what products you have on hand at a moment’s notice, even if you’re working with multiple manufacturing sites. While automated software provides you with accurate inventory quantities, advanced tracking features let you know precisely where to locate your valuable goods.
Less employee overhead
Under the current labor shortage, the chances are high that you’re paying out significant overtime. As the order sizes increase, you might discover yourself searching for additional help and resources that simply aren’t available. Automating your operations is the surest way to keep up with the extra workload.
Automated industrial equipment helps reduce workplace injury, as well, by handling repetitive and heavy lifting tasks on the shop floor. Other administrative-orientated platforms can automatically schedule employee shifts and deliveries, while performing several mundane tasks that need daily attention. If your objective is to increase throughput with less labor to increase your bottom line, industrial automation solutions from EZSoft can help.
Fewer production errors
It doesn’t matter how contentious your employees are: human error will always work itself into the production and ordering process. Numerical typos and mishandled ingredients can quickly escalate into customer complaints, and the last thing you need to give a client is an excuse to switch to another supplier.
The best way to reduce the prospects of human error is by adopting automated execution and ordering solutions. Once you automate your ordering process through a top process and information control system provider like EZSoft, you don’t have to worry about data entry errors. Your customers can place wholesale order themselves, and the request appears automatically in your production system. Automated ingredients handling systems, likewise, ensure product and brand consistency.
Ho do I find the best industrial automation companies near me?
If you’re ready to start automating your wholesale bakery now, the first step is sourcing a top process control systems provider to assess your operation. After completing a comprehensive review of your current operations, EZSoft will help you determine the best solutions to improve efficiency while meeting the unique requirements of your business. To learn more about how automation can reduce labor costs and increase throughput at your facility, fill out our request form online or call us today at (484) 568-5040.
