SCOTTSDALE, AZ — Incorporating new technologies such as AI into a business can be scary. Companies worry about the significant alterations it will require and a lack of tangible ROI. However, there is a lot of potential in the baking industry, and experts shared these benefits during the Baking in an AI World: Incorporating Emerging Technology to Optimize Operations panel during the 2024 American Bakers Association (ABA) Convention, held April 14-17 in Scottsdale, AZ.
Eric Dell, president and CEO of ABA, moderated the panel, which included Gregory Powers, VP of cool stuff at Gray Solutions; Murray Thom, VP of quantum technology evangelism at D-Wave; Marco Petruccelli, VP, CIO and CTO of Lallemand; and Natalia Connolly, senior VP of digital, AI and data at AlixPartners.
“There are some opportunities for some large gains,” Thom said. “And that’s what [businesses are] looking for — ways to incorporate this new emerging technology to produce gains and do it in a way that’s human-centered.”
Beyond the typical use cases of AI that people all over the world incorporate, how can companies in the commercial baking industry leverage AI to significantly increase their ROI?
Using AI to manage labor needs is one of the first opportunities that came to mind for the panelists, and Connolly said it’s all about optimizing a workforce, minimizing costs and making sure everything is sustainable. For example, using AI to create more accurate forecasts of supply and demand can improve employee scheduling.
Another area in which AI could benefit the baking sector is energy consumption. By identifying potential areas of inefficiency, AI can help companies change how they use energy and how it’s distributed, from factory operations to temperatures (heating and cooling).
Hand in hand with energy consumption is the supply chain. Petruccelli said simply feeding an AI model how a supply chain should be running and teaching it to plan it would make processes more autonomous.
Thom also reminded bakers that more efficiency in the supply chain and manufacturing reduces overall energy consumption, which, in turn, allows a company to be more sustainable.
“It’s about can I operate with less inventory?” he said. “Or, can I accomplish this delivery with 20% extra resources rather than 30% by reducing the miles traveled and the number of trucks needed to distribute equipment?”
On the manufacturing floor, AI can recognize and learn from patterns to improve predictive maintenance and product maintenance processes.
Bakers should also consider moving product quality from a manual process to a machine-driven one because once AI is fed large amounts of datasets, it can flag any issues and course correct the product.
On the manufacturing floor, AI can recognize and learn from patterns to improve predictive maintenance and product maintenance processes.
“A lot of our equipment is aging, right?” Petruccelli added. “And at times we think about, well, when’s the best time to bring down the system or bring down our equipment and disrupt the production line? And how do we do that in a most minimized fashion to reduce the business impact?”
Bakers should also consider moving product quality from a manual process to a machine-driven one because once AI is fed large amounts of datasets, it can flag any issues and course correct the product.
Application opportunities for AI abound in the baking industry, and many of them can produce big gains. The key for companies is to first understand their business challenges and then incorporate this technology as a way of solving those issues.
