Scrap means unusable materials discarded during food production. It may sound okay, as waste is inevitable. However, scrap can become a real issue on your way to ensuring food safety and compliance. Moreover, high scrap rates harm manufacturing, as they can cause quality issues, lower the company’s efficiency, and bring other disadvantages.
Reducing scrap with MES is an excellent strategy to implement. The system has features that make it a valuable tool for this purpose. In this blog, you will find six ways MES helps minimize food manufacturing scrap to ensure you produce safe and consistent products.
What Is Scrap in Food Production and Why Is It a Problem?
Scrap refers to unusable excess that occurs during manufacturing. It can be caused by various factors, including poor quality control, lack of training, or shop floor inefficiencies. Scrap is a warning about existing problems and can cause other issues like extra spending and low efficiency.
A crucial concern is the scrap’s impact on food safety. Poor scrap control can result in food safety hazards, including physical, biological, and chemical.
Scrap is a significant issue for food manufacturers. EPA indicates that the food and beverage manufacturing and processing sectors generated 40 million tons of wasted food in 2019. That’s why you should pay attention to scrap rates and implement a strategy to minimize food manufacturing waste.
How MES Helps Food Manufacturers Minimize Scrap?
MES has many benefits, but we haven’t mentioned one yet: scrap minimization. Implementing MES software will help you reduce waste thanks to features like real-time data management, quality control, traceability, maintenance management, and others. Let’s have a deeper look at each aspect.
1. Real-Time Data Monitoring and Notifications To Minimize Production Scrap
MES is well-known for its monitoring and data collection capabilities. It’s almost impossible to catch inconsistencies and extra scrap manually and instantly. You will need some time. MES will notice scrap faster and immediately notify you about the problem.
Real-time tracking and control make you feel more confident about catching the most minor details as fast as possible. As a result, you avoid expensive waste.
2. Quality Control for Scrap Reduction
Quality control measures are essential for reducing scrap material, and the MES quality management feature can assist with this task. The system will automate the quality checks and help with process standardization. Proper quality control procedures will help you catch the issues early to reduce the scrap amount.
3. Inventory Control To Avoid Scrap Inventory-Caused Scrap
Some inventory-related problems can lead to extra scrap in manufacturing. These could include poor planning, spoilage, overstock, inaccurate inventory data, etc. The MES inventory management feature can help handle these issues and ensure real-time inventory tracking, optimize production schedules, establish shelf-life control, and more.
The feature will help optimize inventory to minimize waste and scrap caused by inventory inconsistencies.
4. Reducing Equipment-Related Scrap With Maintenance Management
Poor equipment maintenance is another cause of scrap. Machine malfunctions can lead to low-quality or defective food, which causes extra waste. MES functionality allows you to manage equipment maintenance, helping you avoid downtime and product defects and minimize scrap on the production floor.
5. Traceability and Root Cause Analysis for Better Scrap Management
MES traceability helps businesses track production processes forward and backward, helping catch issues in production, minimize loss, and identify spoiled products. It allows manufacturers to find the root causes of scrap and incorporate preventive measures.
The manufacturing execution system catches deviations, and then you can analyze the problem using the system’s historical data.
Identifying the root cause will help significantly reduce scrap, ultimately increasing efficiency and productivity. Even more important is that you can archive the issue in the system, and if a similar problem occurs, you will find a way to deal with it faster.
6. MES Reduces Human Error
MES automates the production process, significantly lowering the chances of human error and missed blind spots. Manual tracking is time-consuming and less effective than implemented MES software. Monitoring the food inventory, catching mistakes, and making data-driven decisions will become more manageable with a digital solution.
7. Integration Capabilities Drive More Efficient Scrap Control
MES integrates with other production systems, such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Quality Management System (QMS), or Food Inventory Management Software, to enhance scrap reduction efficiency.
In addition, MES uses IoT technology to retrieve data from machinery, which improves predictive maintenance and helps reduce scrap caused by faulty equipment.
Integrations help create a unified ecosystem, assisting manufacturers to oversee production operations better. Real-time visibility and proactivity will help minimize scrap and waste.
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Incorporate MES Software To Minimize the Production Scrap
FoodReady MES is eager to assist you if you want an MES solution to help you maintain the highest food safety standards and build an efficient food manufacturing business.
At FoodReady, we focus on safe and efficient food manufacturing, helping you minimize scrap, digitize your operations, and boost your productivity.
Our software has comprehensive features like quality control, real-time monitoring, inventory management, etc. We tailor the solution to meet your specific needs. If you aim to reduce scrap, we will help you optimize inventory levels, optimize equipment maintenance, and create an overview of your operations.
Implementing a digital solution is a game changer and a must-have in the smart manufacturing era. Imagine how much you can simplify and centralize on the production floor and what result it can give! Contact us to find out more.
Conclusion
Scrap reduction is essential for food manufacturers who want to improve food safety, regulatory compliance, and production efficiency. MES software can help you do that with its features like real-time monitoring, inventory management, quality control, or maintenance management. Moreover, MES will help you reduce human error and automate processes, helping you prevent and minimize waste.
If you are looking for a solution, FoodReady MES is an excellent choice for food manufacturers. We will help you tackle scrap, boost your efficiency and profitability, and comply with regulatory requirements.
Contact us and book a demo to see our full functionality, which is needed to reduce scrap in manufacturing.
FAQs
Even though MES requires investment, it will help cut expenses caused by scrap and waste, thanks to real-time visibility, enhanced quality control, optimized inventory, etc. Moreover, scrap minimization is not the only aspect MES oversees. The solution brings you many benefits and functions, making it a cost-effective idea.
The sources include raw ingredient waste, quality control rejects, surplus inventory, etc.
You can calculate the scrap rate using a formula: Scrap Rate % = (Number of Discarded Units / Total Production Run) x 100.
Unlike waste, which is typically unrelated to the product, scrap is generated from food manufacturing.
Unfortunately, the food industry adversely affects the environment in general. Nearly a quarter (26%) of greenhouse gas emissions are caused by food production. Scientific sources also state that food waste, in particular, contributes to 6% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
