The trade magazine LEBENSMITTELTECHNIK spoke with Prof. Stefan Witte, Prof. Hans-Jürgen Danneel and Prof. Volker Lohweg from the Ostwestfalen-Lippe University of Applied Sciences about the current hurdles and how the smartFoodTechnologyOWL initiative is to succeed in transferring technology to an industry that has so far approached the topic of Industry 4.0 with relative restraint.
LT: Prof. Witte, what is behind the smartFoodTechnologyOWL research initiative and what are its goals?
Stefan Witte: Together with around 40 small and large regional partners from industry, trade, commerce and other research institutions, we at the Ostwestfalen-Lippe University of Applied Sciences are working on innovative products and technologies for the food industry as part of smartFoodTechnologyOWL. By bringing together Industry 4.0 competencies and food technology know-how, a competence center on the topic of "where food meets IT" is thus being created at the Innovation Campus Lemgo, which is one of the top addresses in Europe for working out the potential of digitalization in the environment of food technologies.
LT: Did the idea for the initiative come from the university? Or were there also other initiators, for example the many small and medium-sized enterprises in the region?
Witte: We made the first push. The initiative, which is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), was launched in 2016 by the Institute for Food Technology.NRW (ILT.NRW) and the Institute for Industrial Information Technology (inIT) at the Ostwestfalen-Lippe University of Applied Sciences.
LT: What part does the Ostwestfalen-Lippe University of Applied Sciences play within the initiative?
Witte: A very central one. For us, it was clear from the very beginning that if we wanted to address the topic of smart food technology, we had to combine our competencies from the world of food technology with those from IT and automation technology. The smartFoodTechnologyOWL partnership uses the potential of digitization and Industry 4.0 technologies to network previously separate individual systems in the food industry into integrated value creation and production chains. Behind this are very specific technologies and concepts that can be implemented step by step. At this point, I'd like to pass the floor to Prof. Danneel and Prof. Lohweg ...
Hans-Jürgen Danneel: The two key competencies mentioned by Prof. Witte are located in the immediate vicinity of each other with our two institutes at the Innovation Campus Lemgo. With smartFoodTechnologyOWL, we want to provide the impetus for a fundamental change in the quality philosophy of the food industry: Away from retrospective to continuous, prospective monitoring.
Volker Lohweg: With our technologies, we are primarily targeting small and medium-sized enterprises. Here in the region of East Westphalia-Lippe, we have a strong food industry, a broad-based mechanical and plant engineering sector, and a large number of automation specialists - so it simply made sense to bring all these pieces of the mosaic together with our partnership in order to bring the buzzword "Industry 4.0" back down to earth in business practice.
LT: Industry 4.0 is an opportunity for the mechanical and plant engineering sector in particular. The industry is working intensively on digital solutions. Shouldn't there be enough know-how here to combine the competencies you are calling for?
Lohweg: Basically, you are right, on the one hand. On the other hand, we have noticed that, compared to other disciplines such as automotive and chemicals, food machinery manufacturing still has some catching up to do technologically in many areas. While the large market leaders in this country are certainly already further ahead, the small and medium-sized plant manufacturers have not yet discovered topics such as big data and the cloud for themselves ...
Danneel: ... a fact that incidentally also applies to the food industry. Many of the small and medium-sized companies have their backs to the wall due to fierce price competition. In view of the scarcity of resources, they find it difficult to assess the technological maturity of appropriate solutions and would prefer to leave everything as it is.
LT: So the drive for digitization is not coming from companies in the food industry?
Danneel: Despite the high economic potential associated with Industry 4.0, the industry is approaching the topic relatively cautiously. What exactly lies behind the "new digital solutions" often remains nebulous for companies. This is probably one reason why the food machinery industry has only taken up the topic later. Food producers' desire for Industry 4.0 technologies was simply not as great as in other industries.
LT: Nevertheless, the food industry is no stranger to automation and digitization. Many processes have already been automated in recent years and some have already been digitized ...
Lohweg: That's why we don't talk about automation at smartFoodTechnologyOWL, but always about intelligent automation, because the consistency of the data generated in the value creation process requires the networking of a wide variety of IT systems within the company and beyond its borders. The question here is how we can optimize production on a multi-criteria basis. Central aspects at smartFoodTechnologyOWL are, for example, the topics of sustainability and food waste - both in the context of individual foods and packaging.
Witte: To this end, the project teams led by Prof. Danneel and Prof. Lohweg are developing sensors for the targeted identification and determination of volatile organic compounds, which, as spoilage indicators, allow conclusions to be drawn about shelf life at a very early stage.
Lohweg: "Our research is not only aimed at predicting shelf life. In the future, the smart sensors should enable food producers to react to changes in the process by means of real-time data in order to ensure the desired quality - entirely in the sense of a closed-loop process. Until this vision becomes reality, we still have several years of basic scientific work ahead of us. We have to find out what the physical or even chemical measurement methods can do in the field of real-time quality assurance.
LT: For a successful introduction of Industry 4.0 solutions, many experts see employee acceptance of the new technologies as a key element ...
Danneel: The food industry is virtually forced to drive the digital transformation if it wants to open up new fields. In this respect, I don't think we need to talk about acceptance at all. We are establishing new standards here in terms of food safety and quality, from which companies will ultimately benefit. But you're right, of course: Industry 4.0 only unfolds its full potential with the experiential knowledge of employees. Digitization plays such an important role in the food industry not least because the shortage of skilled workers in this area is now being felt in companies.
LT: You have already indicated that there is no silver bullet for digitization and networking. Where do you currently see the biggest hurdles to making the vision of real-time quality control a reality?
Lohweg: If we take a closer look at the processes in the food industry, one deficit repeatedly catches our eye: There has hardly been any value creation from machine data so far. However, this is absolutely necessary in order to understand a producing plant in the sense of Industry 4.0 and to make material optimizations for more sustainability. I see the greatest need for action in the development of smart sensors, data analysis and machine learning methods.
Danneel: There is one hurdle in particular that we need to overcome: Translating food properties into wide-range sensor data. We initially underestimated this topic in particular and the diligence that goes with it. We still lack these highly data-intensive sensors with which we can map the multitude of our foods realistically and in real time. They are the foundation on the way to digital and networked production, and their development involves considerably more effort than we thought at the beginning. That was a lesson we learned at smartFoodTechnologyOWL.
LT: ... high-data-intensive measurement technology, what exactly is behind this term?
Danneel: It allows us to determine important quality parameters in real time. We are currently working at ILT.NRW on sensor solutions for use in industrial processes that are based on near-infrared spectroscopy (NIR). The team around Prof. Lohweg from inIT complements our research with competences from the fields of signal and image processing, high-dimensional data analysis and pattern recognition methods. This is vividly implemented with a demonstration system for the mashing process in beer brewing. The sensors we have developed determine the critical sugar and nitrogen contents and make it possible to predict the final degree of fermentation of the beer.
Lohweg: For us, the demonstrator is also a prototype research platform on which we can test Industry 4.0 technologies such as machine learning, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, highly data-intensive sensor technology and Big Data applications so that we can later integrate them into real production environments.
LT: To what extent are sensor manufacturers in the market interested in providing appropriate solutions for the food industry?
Lohweg: Even the market-leading technology providers find it difficult to develop such specific sensors. The reasons for this lie in the heterogeneous automation markets and the business models based on them. The intention of the companies is to sell as many sensors as possible to as many industries as possible.
Witte: ... and we must not ignore the cost aspect: The lower unit numbers of special sensors in industrial applications mean that development costs have to be allocated to units sold. At present, these price regions are still uneconomical for food machine manufacturers. In addition, users in the food industry are often unwilling to pay for such new features.
LT: As a result, the costs of sensor systems remain high, and new applications cannot be developed ...
Lohweg: This is a vicious circle that we want to break. We need to find highly data-intensive solutions that are also affordable. As a result, at smartFoodTechnologyOWL we are concentrating, together with our partners, on developing our own non-invasive methods with which we can record any and any number of relevant food ingredients. These sensors, which are based on near-infrared spectroscopy, are used in our mash demonstrator, for example. They enable more comprehensive quality assurance than conventional sampling followed by laboratory testing.
LT: When do you think the new technology will be marketable?
Lohweg: We are making good progress in the field of near-infrared spectroscopy. Even though I don't want to go too far out on a limb with my prediction now: I think that in two to three years we will have practical solutions that are also competitive from an economic point of view.
LT: High levels of quality and productivity can already be achieved with today's production equipment. To what extent can food producers benefit beyond that?
Lohweg: The timely availability of measurement results means that time-consuming quality tasks can be significantly reduced. Data handling and data linking are two important drivers here to close control loops and thus the key to more productivity. Quality assurance and food production will no longer operate separately and independently of each other, but will function as a holistically integrated process.
Danneel: The digital image of the food will become a valuable pool of knowledge. The moment I have the opportunity to intervene in the process with rapid closed-loop feedback, I will not only be able to produce the same standard every time, but also products that are personally tailored to consumers. This is where the discussion about the much-vaunted batch size 1 begins.
LT: With the Smart FOODFACTORY, you want to make a large part of your Industry 4.0 technologies accessible to the industry. What kind of thrust do you expect from this project?
Witte: With our Smart FOODFACTORY, the topic of digitization in the food industry once again clearly underscores its relevance for the industry. Many partners from the smartFoodTechnologyOWL network have pledged their commitment. Above all, plant manufacturers and food producers from the East Westphalia-Lippe region have signaled a very high level of interest.
LT: How far has the construction project progressed?
Witte: By the end of 2022 at the latest, with the opening of the Smart FOODFACTORY, small and medium-sized companies should receive support in order to be able to grow with the increasing digitization in the food industry. But the door is also open to the big players in the market.
Danneel: We see ourselves here as pioneers in the modernization of production processes in the food industry. With the Smart FOODFACTORY, intelligent automation becomes tangible and is located on the Innovation Campus in the immediate vicinity of the ILT.NRW and inIT. We are thus creating a platform that is visible far beyond the region and that bundles all the necessary competencies under one roof.
LT: What technical possibilities does this offer you?
Danneel: In terms of equipment, there are almost no limits to what we can do in food and beverage production. Particularly with regard to the topics of plant-based food and sustainability, we expect the possibilities in the Smart FOODFACTORY to provide additional impetus. The initial equipment will include an extruder for texturizing, for example. Furthermore, we want to integrate a large-scale plant that will offer us the possibilities for holistic utilization of plant materials in order to obtain refined raw materials for food production.
LT: At the beginning of 2021, you started the four-year intensification phase with smartFoodTechnologyOWL. Looking back at the start in 2016, what is your conclusion after the set-up phase that has now ended?
Witte: One important insight that we were able to gain in collaboration with our partners during the start-up phase is that the processes can be designed quite differently than we originally thought. This is one of the reasons why we were already able to make progress at all levels in this first phase. Transferring this to an industrial scale is the main focus of our activities up to the end of 2024.
Danneel: In addition, the start-up phase has clearly shown us that food producers provide the application fields for Industry 4.0, but do not have the resources for the development work. It is primarily the food machinery industry that is driving the modernization of the sector ...
Lohweg: ... and that's why we will focus even more on cooperation with the machine builders in the future. Together with our partners, we want to close the gaps relevant to the food industry and deliver the Industry 4.0 technologies specialized for the food sector.
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The interview was conducted by Mareike Bähnisch, freelance specialist journalist for process technology, and LT Editor-in-Chief Thomas Wiese. You can also find the interview in LT 3/21, which will be published on March 16.