Tucked away in the Welsh coastal town of Llanelli, the Dunbia Cross Hands factory has 29 lines stretching across an impressive 210sqm of space.
Producing 40-45,000 tonnes a year, this site is overseen by Carlos Silva, who joined the business four years ago. Silva has an impressive CV, including roles at Pilgrim’s UK, Vion, 2 Sisters, and Kepak.
During his time at Cross Hands, he has been quick to make his mark, championing a series of operational changes ranging from investment in advanced tech to the more unconventional removal of robots.
Technology with a purpose
Like many in the sector, the meat processor is looking at where artificial intelligence (AI) can make the biggest practical difference. In this case, that means using data to help the team plan more accurately, respond more quickly to customer demand, and keep production moving with greater confidence.
One example is the use of Qlik Sense, where forecasting tools bring together sales and order information to help the site anticipate what is coming through the business. Rather than simply reacting to orders once they arrive, the team can use better visibility of demand to support labour planning, production scheduling and customer service.
For Silva, that visibility is important because the challenge in a high-volume retail packing environment is not just producing at speed, but making sure the right products are produced at the right time.
The same focus on purposeful AI technology can be seen on the factory floor, where equipment such as the TVI GMS 1600 slicer supports accuracy and consistency at speed on one of the site’s steak lines. After the product has been de-bagged, trimmed, crust frozen (a negligible ice ‘crust’ formed around the perimeter, so it holds it shape), pressed and sliced, intelligent cameras assess the size and weight attributes. This helps to ensure every steak meets individual customer specifications. Any found to be out of spec are automatically rejected from the line and reused elsewhere.
In a category where specifications can vary by customer and by product, the ability to portion efficiently helps the site maintain control while meeting a wide range of retail requirements.
It is not technology for technology’s sake. The investment only matters if it helps the operation deliver for customers, reduce avoidable inefficiency and give colleagues the tools to make better decisions during a busy production day.
For Silva, this is where AI can add the greatest value – handling repetitive, high-volume checks that are difficult for humans to be carried out consistently at scale. Still, for now, AI is being used in conjunction with the human line managers at Dunbia, with Silva noting that manual oversight remains an essential part of the process.
Indeed, while Silva is embracing technology and automation on the site, he is clear that this is not what sets the business apart.
Equipment is no longer a differentiator
“Twenty years ago, if you were going to a plant, you could see ten different [equipment] manufacturers. Now there are mainly three or four,” he told Food Manufacture.
“That means every single processor can buy these machines. You can go to the market and buy the same slicers I have, the same packing machines I have, so you can be as competitive as I am in terms of equipment.”
So if machinery isn’t giving Cross Hands a competitive edge, what is?
“What makes me more competitive is the people that operate the process,” he confirmed. “We need to invest a lot in our people because it is the people that make the difference.
“If you have someone that cares about what they do, they are passionate about the process; they guarantee that the attributes that each customer wants are achieved.”
But, as Silva explained, for people to care, they need to feel cared for.
“Sometimes people ask me, ‘what is culture?’ Culture is respect. If you respect our customers, you will not put a bad pack on the shelf because you respect them. If our people respect the product, it has quality. Everything is centred around respect.”
This respect doesn’t just go from line operator to customer, however; it’s also an intrinsic part of how Silva leads.
“If you respect your people, if you respect their health and safety, they feel happy.”
To this end, Silva says much of his day is spent on the shop floor, speaking with the various teams. Among the 300-something that work at Cross Hands, he claims to know most by name.
“I’d say 90% of the people I know by name. Faces, I’d say 99%. They know me, they approach me, they engage with me. My door is always open.”
The robot that had to go
While some may argue that an autonomous factory is the future, Silva’s people-focused approach has fared him well.
Food Manufacture has previously reported on the need to be mindful about investments into technology – looking at why you want to automate and what the problem you’re trying to solve is, before blindly installing a new robot because the sales rep talked a good game.
Robots and automation have an obvious place in manufacturing, of course; and industry news often focuses on where additional investment in tech can be made. Less common is de-automation – the removal of technology where it no longer delivers value.
But this was exactly what Silva did at Cross Hands – a decision many had their reservations around.
“It would have been on me if it failed,” he told Food Manufacture.
The de-automation project centred around a robotic picker machine installed prior to Silva’s time at the business, which was responsible for moving pallets.
“For you to have an automatic system, everything needs to be designed because robots like doing the same thing all the time. If you introduce variability, those systems don’t work so well.”
The problem was that customers had different crate specifications and the robots were unable to cope with the various shapes.
“It was creating a lot of downtime,” he explained. “We decided this system was not good for the amount of variability we have here and that we needed to go back to a manual system.”
While the idea of removing robots was a scary proposition, the bold decision to revert to manual forklifts has since seen around a 30% uplift in efficiency.
If there’s a lesson to be taken from Dunbia Cross Hands, it’s that the future of manufacturing is unlikely to be fully autonomous – it will be a combination of technology and people. For Silva, competition advantage comes not from choosing one over the other, but from understanding where each adds the most value.
