High-Mix/Low-Volume Food Production

Sometimes you may see High-mix/Low-volume Manufacturing (HMLV) mentioned as ‘Make to order’ manufacturing. That is not an entirely true comparison, however. You could be a HMLV manufacturer and still ‘Make to stock’. But in Food Manufacturing basically everything is made for orders, also Low-mix/High-volume productions.

In essence, HMLV involves many processes and/or changeovers on the production line during a shift to produce a wider array of SKUs and products – either different products altogether or variants of one product. There is no clear definition of how many changes that are involved to be considered a HMLV manufacturer.

We consider Ready-meal manufacturing as HMLV in most cases, as there are many processes involved and a plant rarely produces one product only. However, Meat Manufacturing is also increasing their mix when outputting their products in many different weight ratios and cuts. Therefore, these could also be considered HMLV producers – especially if their variants and products involve a lot of manual processes holding them back from producing higher volumes cost-efficiently.

HMLV production setups adapts to changing demands and is very agile and flexible. Alas, this flexibility comes with a cost as it is often done manually. We will argue that when the complexity reaches a point where it would seem automation is largely not possible, it should be considered a HMLV manufacturer.

The flexibility needed to adapt should be implied and expected from all technical equipment henceforth.

There are proven options on the market already, that can improve HMLV Food Manufacturing. Equipment that at its core has been designed with flexibility in mind to support an increasingly agile business. Allow us to recommend these:

1. Automatic Tray denesting for different tray sizes

If your output has many different sizes, shapes, weight ratios and require different trays, you have options. QUPAQ denesters can handle a lot of tray variants and changeovers can be done smoothly. Need a new tray – just change the tool in the machine.

2. Automatic product loading for different products.

If your products/variants should be distributed and loaded into trays differently, then you have options. QUPAQs loading systems can also be adapted to different recipes and products on the same equipment.

Our loaders can outperform any manual labor.

3. Automatic End-of-Line handling and palletizing

One of the hardest and most injury-prone tasks on a production line is palletizing. It is repetitive and workers are prone for injuries and muscle pains. QUPAQ have solutions for fast and agile palletizing using robots. We also have many technologies that enable plants to make better use of their space – also vertically.

QUPAQ is moving, packing and aligning the sealed trays during End-of-Line operations with proven solutions.