DEXA may be the talk of the industry at the moment – but it is only one of many technology advances in the pipeline for Teys Australia.
More than 200 people travelled to Duaringa on Tuesday to see Teys’ DEXA machine for themselves.
The day provided plenty of food for thought – with a lineup of speakers discussing everything from DEXA itself to animal health, industry advancements, and meat quality.
But it was Teys general manager of corporate affairs Tom Maguire who caught producers’ attention when he spoke not only about DEXA, but about more advancements towards automation.
Teys Lakes Creek is preparing for a DEXA machine to be installed and operational by November, and Mr Maguire said space had been left in that area of the plant to make way for a carcase scribing robot.
He said with DEXA machines able to read how much meat, fat and bone is in a carcase, the next step would be the machine working out where cutting lines should go.
The DEXA image will be sent straight to the robot, and the robot will cut straight along the precise line – in what Mr Maguire described as the “first stage in automation”.
He said with the cost of processing cattle in Australia twice as much as the US and three times as much as China, it was time to “embrace” automation and the benefits it could offer.
”We want to look at different applications for the robots going forward,” he said.
“The good thing about robots of course is they don’t have days off, they don’t get sick, they don’t have absenteeism.
“The most important thing to think about with robots is they’ll cut on these lines in the same place all day, every day.
“What we find out about people, is they start off in the morning doing that really well, but by lunch they miss it by one or two per cent, and… towards the end of the day, well we all know what happens at the end of the day.
“It doesn’t sound like much, but in terms of lost yield to the industry every year you think of the money that gets lost in that kind of human variation.”
Mr Maguire said he would not promise the robots would be installed before Beef 2018, but said he hoped to have one ready to display at the event.
Kelly Butterworth
Rockhampton-based journalist covering all things ag.
Rockhampton-based journalist covering all things ag.
