JBS Australia: The Opportunity
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Snoopy
I see from Appendix 1 of the Northington report that JBS Australia has 11 processing facilities in Australia. From the presentation:
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Over the past two, JBS Australia and Scott have worked together installing an automated meat processing system for its lamb plant in Bordertown and elsewhere in Australia.
1/ The production line at Bordertown is running daily, at commercial line speeds (approx. 10 head of sheep per minute or approx. 8,000 per day). [Snoopy note: looks like two eight hour shifts per day]
2/ Rather than leading to redundancies, staff have been reloc'[/ated to other parts of the plant, with consequent expansion in throughput.
3/Scott’s automation equipment is also operating at JBS’s Brooklyn plant (lamb) and beef plants at Dinmore and Beef City.
This reads as though Bordertown has 'full automation' and Brooklyn (lamb) and for Beef Dinmore and 'Beef City' (Toowoomba) are partially automated.
The JBS Australia Website lists the following processing sites:
Queensland: Dinmore, Beef City (near Toowoomba), Rockhampton, Townsville
NSW: Rivernia (rural NSW)
Victoria: Brooklyn, Cobram
Tasmania: Devonport, Longford
South Australia: Bordertown
Late in 2014, JBS acquired the 'Primo' group, specialising in smallgoods and bacon. Primo has two abbatoirs. One in Port Wakefield (South Australia) , and the other at Scone in the Hunter valley (NSW)
Nine of the above facilities process beef, and one pork. However JBS also processes lamb (Brooklyn) and goats.
JBS Australia is the 'first line of growth' for Scott Technology. So I think it is worth itemizing the opportunity amongst the JBS Australia plants. Overall 85% of JBS Australia's meat cut output is exported. This means international cost competitiveness is paramount. Robotics is a good way to bridge the cost gap to low cost overseas competitor countries. For Scott Technology these robotic development opportunities are not quite 'cash in the bank'. But with JBS Australia as Scott's controlling shareholder they are the nearest thing to it.
JBS Australia Meat Processing Plants |
Location |
Plant |
Animals Processed |
Output Capacity per day |
Scott Robotics Installed? |
Queensland |
Dinmore |
Cattle |
3400 |
Yes (pre EOFY2015) |
Queensland |
Beef City (Toowoomba) |
Cattle (grain fed) |
1134 |
Yes (pre EOFY2015) |
Queensland |
Rockhampton |
Cattle (grass fed) |
1400 |
Queensland |
Townsville |
Cattle (grass fed) |
1800 |
New South Wales |
Riverina |
Cattle (grain fed) |
600 |
New South Wales |
Scone |
Cattle (grass fed) |
650 |
Victoria |
Brooklyn |
Cattle |
1400 |
|
|
and 'Small Stock' |
8200 |
Victoria |
Cobram |
Lambs |
3200 |
South Australia |
Bordertown |
'Small Stock' |
5000 |
Yes (pre EOFY2015) |
Tasmania |
Devonport |
Cattle (grass and grain fed) |
28 |
|
|
and Pigs |
85 |
|
|
and Lambs |
540 |
Tasmania |
Longford |
Cattle |
450 |
|
|
and 'Small Stock' |
1600 |
Scotts have a policy of not referring to specific contracts in their reporting periods. Yet relevant commentary from subsequent reports follows:
HY2016 p1 "An uplift in projects for the meat processing sector, the company's Australasian sales were up over 70% from the previous year."
FY2016 p5 "the manufacture and sale of multiple repeat X-ray , Primal and Middle Systems for meat processors in Australia and New Zealand
FY2016 p51 "Meat Processing Revenue: FY2016 $38.875m, FY2015 $10.924m, +256% yoy
HY2017 p1 "Economies of scale gained through a of repeat builds for the food and industrial automation industries, together with a closer sharing of skills and resources on on projects between Australia and New Zealand resulted in the company's Australasian sales being up 34% from the previous corresponding period."
HY2017 p10: Australasia Manufacturing Revenues HY2017: $45.091m HY2016 $33.533m +34% yoy
FY2017 p7; "Scott is also working closely with the Australian industry as it determines the best way to implement a planned roll out of DEXA X-ray technology to approximately 80 'Ausmeat' accredited meat processing facilities. The total project is expected to be rolled out over the next three years and opens the possibility to utilise the X-ray rooms to to drive Scott's meat processing automation.'"
HY2018 p4 "Growth in the uptake and sale of our meat processing technologies is expected to accelerate in the second half of the year following a longer than expected completion time for previous projects and and a period of reduced activity in Australia caused in part by the ongoing discussions and uncertainty over the Red Meat industry roll out of DEXA systems into all Ausmeat accredited facilities."
"During the first half of the year we commenced substantial development projects for our meat processing customers, including a start in the Pork and Poultry sector in addition to our meat and lamb."
FY2018 p5 "Sales into our traditional markets of Appliances, Meat Processing and Mining sectors all achieved double digit growth. with the Appliance sector being the stand out with a 56% increase from the prior year."
FY2018 p6 "We have commenced significant projects aimed at transferring our technology from lamb deboning to other species. Scott currently has two significant projects underway in beef, one in pork and two in poultry."
FY2018 p7 "Bladestop bandsaw sales met our current year targets and combined with ongoing demand for lamb and boning automation solutions in New Zealand and Australia helped deliver record sales in our meat processing sector."
HY2019 "Australasia manufacturing sales were up 6% although due to heavy R&D spend and some project cost overruns contributions were down. One project in the meat industry suffered longer than expected commissioning times."
It looks like sales are rolling forwards, particularly in Australia. But what exactly is it in terms of specific projects that Scott are able to offer to the meat industry?
SNOOPY
Meat Industry Robotics: What's for sale?
,
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Snoopy
It looks like sales are rolling forwards, particularly in Australia. But what exactly is it in terms of specific projects that Scott are able to offer to the meat industry?
Scott's crown jewel Meat Industry project is the 'Automated Lamb Boning Room'. This can be broken down into six distinct units:
1/ X-ray Grading
2/ X-ray Primal Cutter
3/ Middle Machine (prepares rack and loin)
4/ Hindquarter leg de-boner
5/ Forequarter Processing
6/ Knuckle Tipper (removes knuckle top from hind leg).
Together 1-6 make up the 'automated lamb boning room', The design throughput speed is 10-12 carcasses per minute (equating to 8,000 per day), although I am not sure how many pieces of equipment operating in parallel at the same time this represents. The are other machine products, the most high profile being 'Bladestop', a failsafe boning saw for sale to the industry. But these other products are not fully automated and so represent sales along the path to automation. They are not themselves part of the automated boning room so I will not discuss these semi-manual tools further in this post.
Automating the breakdown of a lamb carcass is an easy task (easy being a relative term) in the labyrinth of dissection possibilities of all animals farmed for meat. This is because lambs are relatively small and more uniform in size than beef carcasses in particular. The automation potential in the beef industry is much greater. However due to the beef carcass being much heavier and processed in halves, rather than full animals, the full automation of this is a very different and harder task.
As far as I can make out the automated beef machines that Scott's currently consist of:
1/ the "Beef Rib Cutter / Scorcher"
2/ the "Beef Hock Cutter"
There is currently nothing commercially available for pork.
Scott's are busy with their R&D, filling the holes in their meat cut automation range: Even chicken and salmon is on the research list. But as things stand now, with the exception of lamb, the automated solutions for the most potentially lucrative market - beef - are limited.
SNOOPY