Challenges for the baking industry

The baking industry is facing a variety of challenges in the present landscape. These challenges encompass rising expectations for product quality and safety, the need for more sustainable production methods and packaging solutions and the necessity to align with evolving consumer trends and nutritional regulations. Furthermore, the manufacturers of baked goods must ensure efficient production processes while simultaneously responding to surges in raw material prices and supply chain disruptions.

Within large industrial bakeries, production lines often comprise a myriad of systems and machines from various manufacturers, which have little or no communication with each other. When facilities produce convenience and frozen products alongside standard baked goods, typically both the list of suppliers and the number of systems and machines expand. This diverse array of plants and machinery is segmented into numerous process areas and is seldom fully automated or integrated into an overarching IT system.

Numerous plant and machine manufacturers provide information solutions in the form of SCADA systems. Yet these systems are often restricted to their own plants and specific process areas, rather than being designed for a production line or the entire production facility. The need for a higher-level process system becomes apparent when considering existing dispatching, storage and logistics systems, or when producing pastries.