• The Journal of Korea Institute of Information, Electronics, and Communication Technology
• /
• v.16 no.5
• /
• pp.230-238
• /
• 2023

Small and medium-sized food manufacturing enterprises are largely reliant on manual labor, from inputting raw materials to palletizing the final product. Recently, there has been a trend toward smartness and digitization through the implementation of robotics and sensor data technology. In this study, we examined the effectiveness of improvement through 3D simulation on two repetitive work processes within a food manufacturing company. These processes involve workers whose speed cannot match the capacity of the applied equipment. Two manual processes were selected: the weighing and packing process performed by workers after skewer assembly, and the manual batch process of counting randomly delivered frozen foods, packing (both internal and external), and palletizing. The production volume, utilization rate, and number of workers were chosen as verification indicators. As a result of the simulation for improving the 3D process, production increased by 13.5% and 56.8% compared to the existing process, respectively. This was particularly evident in the process of applying palletizing robots. In both processes, as the utilization rate and number of input workers decreased, robots could replace tasks with high worker fatigue, thereby reducing work overload. This study demonstrates the potential to visually compare the process flow improvement using 3D simulations and confirms the possibility of pre-validation for improvement.