MECATHERM: The human must remain the pilot

The human must remain the pilot

PRODUCT QUALITY The M-NS divider allows the division of high-quality dough into dough pieces to be shaped into baguettes, balls, rolls + The industry has always had to deal with two seemingly contradictory requirements: produce quality and keep costs down. All the ingenuity of the manufacturer consists and is aimed precisely at satisfying these two market demands by leveraging the massification of production. But this lever is now being challenged by two new issues: first, the need for agility due to the markets’ versatility, as well as a requirement for increased sustainability due to the stakes becoming worldwide in terms of environmental preservation and social progress. For Mecatherm, automation is a solution only if the human factor remains central. It is as much about the efficiency of these new technologies as it is about the viability of companies that still need to value the work of their operators. Albert Einstein once said rather pessimistically: “It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.” But is this alarming fact inevitable? On the contrary, can't we consider that technology finds its meaning when it is at the service of the human being in our companies? This is how Mecatherm, a

MECATHERM

Route du Maréchal de Lattre de Tassigny 67130 Barembach, France Phone: +33 388 47 43 00 E-mail: info@mecatherm.fr Website: www.mecatherm.fr

© MECATHERM

French company known worldwide for its automatic production lines for bakery and pastry products, Mecatherm considers its mission and implements it with its customers with concrete and reliable solutions at the cutting edge of technology, especially digital.

New challenges ahead

According to Robert Broh, author of Managing Quality for Higher Profits, “Quality is the degree of excellence at an acceptable price and the control of variability at an acceptable cost.” This seemingly complex definition of quality is actually a perfect summary of the manufacturer's craft itself. For the industrialist, a product is ‘of quality’ if it meets demand at a reasonable price. Indeed, since perfection does not exist, quality corresponds to the satisfaction of a precise expectation that carries a value that consumers are ready to give it: its price. At the same time, the manufacturer must face a large number of variables while remaining within their technical and financial capacities to face them, if not, they run the risk of making the product fall out of its value, of its fair price.

This is obvious to any industrialist who has experience. But what can you do when variability increases too much on the demand side? How to do this when the market’s versatility undermines the very principle of industry, which is the massification of production to achieve an optimized degree of quality and cost? “A fashion that appears in a suburb of Los Angeles can, via the Internet and social networks, be a trend the next day in a European or Asian country”, notes Olivier Sergent, Mecatherm President. This creates the tension that too many industrial companies experience between marketing on the one hand and production on the other. The manufacturer, bound by their industrial logic, on the one hand, will ask for time and quantity to reach quality at the right price, as mentioned above. The marketing department, on the other hand, will recall that the market requires agility at the risk of losing market share, in terms of variety and versatility, in the context of global competition.

Added to this are the demands of CSR and compliance. Not that those serious industrialists were devoid of morality, which, as we know, was not invented by the Y generation. But the requirements have increased. The environmental stakes are such that energy waste is no longer just an accounting requirement but a matter of life and death. Also, the globalization of the media and means of communication has made inhabitants of very distant countries feel compelled to participate, or at least not to slow down, the social progress of each other.

FLEXIBILITY The IBA and IBIE award-winning MTA oven is a key element in the flexibility or scalability of the lines

COST OPTIMIZATION The new M-UB mechanizations eliminate 50% of the causes of defects while guaranteeing flexibility and modularity

What can we do about it?

Faced with these challenges, the manufacturer has two main areas for action: its staff and its suppliers. For Mecatherm, these two levers can and must work together and enrich each other. Industrial bakers are permanently facing great difficulty to find and keep a qualified workforce. However, according to Olivier Sergent, “as an equipment supplier, Mecatherm is an automation supplier” and automation consists precisely in replacing manual activity. However, automation, far from diminishing the role of the worker and the human element, frees it and improves it. Indeed, it is about automating labor, not thinking or creativity. The machine does not make decisions for the operator, it extends their human capabilities and allows them to accomplish what they have in mind. Such a vision of automation at the service of human skills makes it possible to respond to Einstein's concern that we mentioned above and to value the work of men and women in the field. In concrete terms, it is digital technology that will enable this fruitful interface between human work and machine automation.

Reliable technological solutions

When an operator takes up his or her shift on Monday morning, he or she asks three questions: Are my machines in working order with no upcoming failures? Is each element of my production line performing its role satisfactorily? Will I be able to produce everything I need this week? As a supplier, Mecatherm wants to be able to answer positively to each of these questions. But when lines are installed all over the world, it is difficult to accompany the operators to ensure that our promise is kept. This is why Mecatherm has set up a digital interface with which a Mecatherm technician is linked, and which allows them to share solutions with the operator and thus to accompany, train and inform them on the status of the line and its operational performance. From this point of view, digital tools do not automate processes, but they accelerate and facilitate them. And above all, digital solutions allow precious proximity between the industrialist and the supplier. The importance of this proximity was especially measured by Mecatherm during the period of the health crisis. Indeed, many manufacturers have praised Mecatherm's continuity of service during this period that prevented the majority of travel and physical meetings. The digital solutions that Mecatherm had already put in place to solve the equation of geographical distance proved to be indispensable during the pandemic.

The whole spectrum of equipment upgraded

By the end of 2021, Mecatherm will have completed its ambition to upgrade its entire range of equipment, making them all the more reliable. For example, the new M-NS ‘No stretch’ divider, which preserves the quality of a hydrated dough while guaranteeing an ideal weight and shape, is an important improvement to bring to a production line. Ovens and coolers have lost 15% of the possibility of failure and they now have much better agility. For instance, the M-TA oven, which

© MECATHERM

© MECATHERM

received the IBA Innovation Award in Munich, is specifically designed to satisfy the need for flexibility while maintaining quality requirements and baking homogeneity.

The digital solutions developed by Mecatherm are centered on the needs of the industrialist, the operator on the field. This is why they intervene at all stages, from the design of the production line to its maintenance, via operator training, production planning, line operation, control, etc. If we consider the planning stage, for instance, Mecatherm wanted to bring a concrete solution to this new need of agility and flexibility that was mentioned above. The era of production lines that manufacture the same item without change for long periods of time is over. In order to reduce the high costs associated with changing products and setting up a new manufacturing process, the M-Plan tool allows sequences to be run virtually and thus optimize performance. Similarly, to make operators swiftly functional, the M-Twin tool allows technicians to acquire skills through a realistic simulator.

Also, by joining forces with ABI Ltd, Mecatherm benefits from a strong ally in North America. From this marriage was born, for example, a special production line for bagels; the fruit of Mecatherm’s experience in manufacturing pastries of all kinds, and the specialization of ABI in the field of automation and robotization.

A carefully conceived and orderly automation of processes

Mecather’s hindsight and experience give it a unique perspective on the market. It is thanks to this view that the French company has been able to integrate its technological progress in the field of automation into a broader way of thinking. This one takes into account a vision of the human being and his place in the organization, who must remain central, and an evolution of the market which does not leave any more the leisure to the industrialists to rely on their established assets by producing the same thing in mass, without paying attention to the versatility of the demand. Mecatherm, under the leadership of its President Olivier Sergent, insists that the key to harmonizing people and process automation is the digital interface. Flexible by nature, it is the link between man and machine and it ensures that the machine serves man and not man the machine. +++

The customer “service” approach starts at the pre-project stage and only ends 20-30 years after the line is commissioned. All Mecatherm digital services are EASY-TO-USE and ACCELERATED by digital applications