On the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month last year, when I was debugging the equipment in the workshop, I suddenly received an urgent call from an old customer, Mr. Zhang: "Mr. Li, we only have seven skilled workers left in our 30 packaging lines, and the Spring Festival orders cannot be completed at all!" This call for help made me more deeply aware of the urgency of the seasonal labor shortage solution. Today I want to talk to you about how our factory's intelligent packaging equipment helps food companies smoothly overcome the pain points of this industry.
From human sea tactics to intelligent defense line
The difficulties encountered by Mr. Zhang's frozen food factory are by no means an isolated case. Around the Spring Festival every year, the turnover rate of packaging line workers generally exceeds 60%, and many companies have to hire temporary workers at high prices, but problems such as high training costs and low efficiency make managers overwhelmed. When we entered the workshop with the newly upgraded intelligent packaging equipment, Mr. Zhang was still skeptical: "Can these iron guys really replace 20 workers?"
Facts have proved that this fully automatic packaging line equipped with a visual positioning system completed the process transformation from raw material delivery to finished product palletizing in just three days. What surprised the workshop director the most was that the equipment could automatically identify dumpling boxes of different specifications, and no manual debugging was required when switching production modes - this used to require the cooperation of three masters to complete the operation, but now it can be done by clicking on the touch screen.
"Stress Test" of Intelligent Equipment
Three days before the Lantern Festival, we suddenly received a video from Mr. Zhang: The workshop's intelligent packaging equipment was processing the explosive glutinous rice balls gift boxes at a speed of 60 packs per minute, and the robotic arm accurately mixed and boxed different flavors. He said excitedly: "This system is much more reliable than temporary workers. It has been running for 18 hours without any "tantrums"!"
Behind this is the special design made by our factory for seasonal production characteristics:
The self-learning correction module can deal with batch differences in packaging materials and avoid frequent manual adjustments
The dual-channel emergency system automatically switches to the backup track when a jam is detected
The remote diagnosis function allows our engineers to troubleshoot online on New Year's Eve
A qualitative change from firefighting to prevention
During the Dragon Boat Festival visit this year, new changes appeared in Mr. Zhang's workshop: the temporary dormitory prepared in previous years to cope with the labor shortage was changed to an equipment maintenance room, and the original packaging team of 20 people now only needs five inspectors. More importantly, the automation upgrade of packaging equipment has brought unexpected gains - the complaint rate of product leakage has dropped by 70%, and customers finally dare to accept overseas orders.
"Now even if workers take leave during the busy farming season, I am not panicked." Mr. Zhang pointed to the production data jumping on the monitoring screen and smiled. This system can not only display the status of the equipment in real time, but also automatically place orders for purchases when consumables are insufficient, and even the workload of warehouse managers has been reduced by half.
The way to break the ice of the industry dilemma
In the past three months, our factory has received consultations from more than 30 companies, all of which were forced to transform due to the labor shortage during the Spring Festival. The transformation case of a nut processing company is particularly typical: after introducing intelligent packaging equipment, their daily production capacity fluctuations have been reduced from ±40% to ±5%, completely saying goodbye to the vicious cycle of "expanding in peak season and laying off in off-season".
Watching the production videos sent by customers, I often think of the words on the wall of the R&D department: "Use technological innovation to fight uncertainty". Now our equipment has evolved to the fourth generation, and the newly added energy recovery system can save 15% of electricity bills, which adds a bumper for customers at the moment when electricity bills are rising.
The future is here, are you ready?
When I attended an industry exchange meeting last weekend, a boss asked me: "With such a large investment in automation, what if there is no shortage of workers next year?" I pointed to the real-time picture of the customer's workshop on my mobile phone and asked back: "Are you willing to bet the fate of the company on the recruitment website, or hold it in your own hands?"
This exploration of solutions to the seasonal labor shortage that has swept the manufacturing industry is no longer a simple equipment replacement, but an upgrade of the company's survival model. Our factory will continue to deepen the flexibility of intelligent packaging equipment, so that more companies can have the confidence that "there is no idleness in the off-season and no chaos in the peak season".
