Golden State Foods was named an overall Food Logistics winner for this year's Top Supply Chain Projects award.
Customer client: Golden State Foods
About the project: Long-time industry standards have included a production workforce that manually ensures patties are up to standard, while fulfilling packaging needs. This method requires food production associates to physically inspect each individual burger patty for imperfections, deformities and safety hazards. Golden State Foods (GSF) emerged on the leading edge of innovative solutions to overcome this persistent challenge.
Solution: GSF’s Opelika, Ala., protein products facility implemented cutting-edge robotics and a vision inspection system that automates patty production, transforming how GSF inspects and processes burger patties, setting a new benchmark in food safety and production standards. The Opelika system integrates high-speed laser technology, which evaluates patty dimensions, such as size and thickness, and instantly discards those that don’t meet criteria. Simultaneously, a set of cameras scan the top and bottom of each patty to either identify defects like foreign objects or misshapen patties within a half-second, or categorize them into reworkable patties or safety discards. Each discarded patty is logged with a photo for further analysis, allowing operators to address issues promptly. With the ability to process over 960 patties per minute, this level of efficiency was previously unachievable with manual inspection. Human observers could only view 50% of a patty’s surface and relied on slower, less accurate methods like metal detection and X-rays. By capturing 100% of each patty’s surface, the vision system substantially improves quality assurance and reduces the risk of contaminated products reaching GSF customers, and in turn, consumers. Additionally, by automating the packing process, GSF associates are now trained to operate robotics, creating a more efficient and safer working environment. GSF also uses machine learning and data analytics to improve production outcomes. Operators now have access to business intelligence dashboards, which aggregate and analyze data from the vision system to track production trends. If rejections increase due to a particular defect (such as patty thickness), operators can identify potential maintenance issues in real time and address them before they impact overall production. These insights, down to the individual patty mold, offer unprecedented visibility into the manufacturing process, reducing downtime and improving overall operational efficiency.
Results: Once the cutting-edge robotics and vision inspection system is fully implemented by mid-2025, the Opelika facility anticipates more than 20% gained in capacity.
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