OAL News
APRIL™ Robotics wins PPMA Innovation Award
We're very pleased to announce that our APRIL™ Robotics Cooking Cell won the most Innovative Robotics System award at this year's PPMA awards.
It's fantastic recognition from the food industry for all the hard work our team, customers and suppliers are putting into changing the way we handle and process ingredients with robots.
The judges were looking for “creative solutions” and “smart use of robotics” that lead to significant productivity improvements and cost reductions. If you've had the chance to see APRIL™ cooking then you'll know the sight of an industrial robot picking up a 500l cooking kettle is definitely different (watch the video to get an idea). And it's the emulation of how a chef cooks in a kitchen, moving saucepans around, that offers cost reductions through labour, yield enhancement and a reduction in capital equipment from the improved utilisation of assets.
More awards to come
Get the champagne on ice, there could be a few more awards to come too! We're shortlisted in three categories at the Appetite for Engineering Food Processing Awards:
Matt Ayre, one of our talented software engineers is up for Young Engineer of the Year
Our APRIL™ Cooking Cell is also up for the Robotics & Automation award
And our APRIL™ Robotic Weighing Station is up for the Future-Factory Enabling Technologies award
And finally… we’re flying the food industry flag at the cross-sector IET, Institue of Engineering and Technology Awards. APRIL™ Robotics is shortlisted for the Manufacturing Technology award in a highly competitive competition. There were over 300 entries to the awards from 25 countries from industries including aerospace, automotive and pharmaceutical.
OAL inspires at Mission Possible Peterborough careers fair
On Friday 23 June 2017, OAL inspired students at the Mission Possible careers fair organised by the Skills Service at the East of England Showground in Peterborough. The event attracted more than 3,000 young students aged 14-24 to encourage them to explore future career options. With so many industries at the event, there was certainly a lot for them to learn about and consider.
OAL’s stand showcased our latest innovations in robotics and automation for food manufacturers to widen young people’s perception of engineering and the food manufacturing industry and to encourage more young people to continue with their STEM subjects and choose engineering as their career.
To get attendees involved and thinking more about the next 10-15 years of the food industry, we ran a competition asking them a key question.
What food will you be eating when you’re 30?
And, with a Kindle Fire tablet as a prize for the best answer, it was worth really thinking about their answers!
By the end of the event, we had more than 160 entries and it was clear that all of them knew that the food industry is dynamic and will be changing dramatically over the next 10 to 15 years.
We were really impressed with the scope of responses which considered current challenges in the world such as the growing population, rising obesity and people’s busier lifestyles. Many of the answers we received aimed to solve these issues using alternative proteins, dehydrated convenience foods and pills and potions full of all the nutrients an individual needs.
The winning answer recognised world hunger as a big issue and considered not just individual eating habits but the eating habits globally:
“A small pill that has all the right nutrients in it that fills you up. It would need to be affordable so it can help to end world hunger.”
If you’re interested in a career at OAL you can learn more in our careers area, including latest roles, summer internships and work experience.
OAL to build new APRIL™ Robotics production facility
We’re very pleased to announce the development of our new state-of-the-art facility to support our APRIL™ Robotics Systems in Cambridgeshire, UK. The new facility supports a growing order book as food manufacturers seek to avoid rising costs in the UK and Europe through significant productivity improvements.
Currently, 529,800 people globally are associated with the common repetitive task of weighing dry ‘micro’ ingredients. The APRIL Robotics Ingredient Handling system automates this task and when linked with APRIL Logistics, fully automates the ingredient and material management within factories.
The OAL team is rapidly accelerating the adoption of robots in food manufacturing as they focus on increasing productivity and efficiency in food factories by automating manual handling tasks. Harry Norman, Owner/Managing Director at OAL, explains more:
“We’re committed to eliminating manual handling in the front end of food processing, and the new APRIL facility gives our team a great space to develop and demonstrate what that means for food manufacturers.
We have a strong reputation for building large scale material handling projects, and advanced manufacturing software (OAL Connected) and the APRIL developments complement these thriving parts of the business.”
So if you’re ready to bring robots into your facility, arrange a visit to learn more about APRIL Robotics today.
OAL secures £450k funding for robotics in food manufacturing
We’re delighted to announce that we have been awarded £448,850 to develop innovative APRIL™ robotics material handling systems for food manufacturers from Innovate UK, the UK's innovation agency. The new project focuses on overcoming the well-documented productivity challenges food manufacturers face preparing ingredients. It will be led by engineers from OAL utilising the latest robotic and automation technologies.
The new one-year project, which is supported by a grant of £448,850 from the UK Government via Innovate UK and the EPSRC's Robotics and Autonomous Systems (RAS) research fund, will focus on automating the processes of handling, weighing and transporting the raw ingredients. It will also make strides in developing key hygiene and food safety features which will be crucial when using robotic production systems within the food manufacturing sector. Researchers from the University of Lincoln will be supporting the project with work being undertaken at the National Centre for Food Manufacturing, Holbeach, UK.
“Food manufacturers are facing rising costs and with little opportunity to increase their prices, they are seeking new and effective ways of improving productivity. Throughout the project, we’ll be taking a step-by-step approach, working our way through common operations found across the food manufacturing sector such as weighing, sieving, and moving ingredients around.
One criticism of automated systems in the past has been the lack of flexibility, but we will aim to develop flexible APRIL robotic systems that can handle some of these tasks and take the pressure off food manufacturers.”
Take the first step towards the robotic revolution with us - get in touch today.
APRIL™ shortlisted for Best Technology Innovation at the World Food Innovation Awards 2017
APRIL pouring water
We’re pleased to announce that our APRIL™ Robot Chef has been shortlisted for the World Food Innovation Awards 2017 in the category ‘Best Technology Innovation’. The esteemed judging panel, including the Global Sustainability Director for Mars, recognised the transformative impact robotics will have on making food manufacturing more consistent and flexible. The winner will be announced on Monday 20th March as part of the International Food and Drink Event (IFE), ExCel London. Click here to see the full list of finalists.
UK food manufacturing faces a number of significant challenges over the coming years, not least the impact Brexit will have on the availability of labour. Sticking with same old, labour-intensive processing and material handling technologies will become cost prohibitive and leave manufacturers unable to fulfil the wide range of products retailers and consumers have come to expect.
APRIL (Automated-Processing-Robotic-Ingredients-Loading) developed with the University of Lincoln, reimagines the food production line, placing robots at the heart of the way we handle and process raw ingredients. By combining advanced materials handling and processing technologies, APRIL can consistently emulate how chefs cook in a professional kitchen bringing more restaurant quality food to our supermarket shelves.
“We are excited by the new thinking involved in the APRIL robotic chef approach. Modular robotics cells may transform food manufacturing kitchens, by breaking up processes in a different way, in doing so providing a step change in performance.”
For manufacturers, smart, robotic food production lines will simplify the way we manufacture products offering flexible consistency. Factories will become up to 80% smaller and the increased levels of control will lead to a safer operating environment and improvements in product shelf-life.
The winner of this award will be announced on Monday 20th March at the International Food and Drink Event at the ExCel in London.