How Chef Bombay Reduced Food Giveaway by 88%
Chef Bombay also lowered deposit standard deviation by 30%, increased labor productivity by 33%, and boosted throughput by 9%.
About Chef Bombay
Chef Bombay is a private-label contract manufacturer serving major US and Canadian retailers. Based in Edmonton, Alberta (Canada), the company produces frozen Indian meals and specializes in rapid stock-keeping unit (SKU) changeovers and large-scale fulfillment.
“Chef allows us to track the standard deviation of our rice deposits, which helps us make continuous improvements. Our standard deviation for rice has decreased 30% with Chef compared to worker-made meals.”
Challenges
Before adopting Chef robots, Chef Bombay faced several operational challenges across its high-mix production lines.
Chef Bombay’s operations required workers to perform redundant motions in cold rooms, which made labor difficult to retain. In addition to improving labor retention, the company wanted to improve worker safety and allocate workers to less repetitive jobs in the plant.
The company was constantly working to improve deposit weight consistency to minimize giveaway and maximize yield. Workers were over-depositing by 2.3% on average throughout a production run, leading to food giveaway and reducing Chef Bombay’s yield.
Chef Bombay tried traditional automation solutions, which weren’t able to achieve consistent deposits without damaging rice, place flexibility into different compartments, or accommodate various portion sizes or new meals.
Chef’s approach
Since traditional automation wasn’t flexible enough, Chef Bombay partnered with Chef Robotics on a more flexible automation solution that would meet its high standards for quality, consistency, and adaptability. Equipped with AI-based perception, a collaborative robot arm, and proprietary utensils, Chef robots maximize SKU compatibility while maintaining product quality, increasing throughput, and maximizing uptime.
- AI-based perception
- Modular and portable
- Collaborative
- Flexible
- Real-time conveyor integration
- Fully deployed in two weeks
- <10-min. changeovers
“By adding four Chef robots, we increased our capacity by just over 20%. So simple math tells you that the ROI is just amazing.”
Impact
After adopting Chef robots, Chef Bombay saw lower giveaway, a reduced deposit standard deviation, higher worker productivity, and higher throughput. The company was able to reduce redundant motions that workers need to perform on the line and has higher visibility into its production operations thanks to live data on every deposit made by Chef.
Since onboarding Chef robots, Chef Bombay has been able to reduce estimated giveaway during assembly by 88% on average for Chef-made meals, leading to improved yield. Additionally, Chef’s standard deviation is 30% lower than that of workers, which leads to better consistency and further yield improvements.
Chef Bombay has seen 33% higher labor productivity on Chef-made meals. Before using Chef, each of Chef Bombay’s assembly lines required 12 workers on average. With 4 Chef robots, lines now only need eight workers to operate. Chef Bombay has reallocated the freed-up workers to do higher-value tasks in other parts of its plant.
Before Chef, four assembly line workers made 66 rice deposits per minute on average. With four Chef robots, this number increased to 73 deposits per minute. This means over two million extra trays per year for Chef Bombay, translating to millions of dollars in added revenue potential.
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