Is local industry capital investment keeping pace with global innovation? Are our food manufacturing facilities gearing up to meet export demand? And are we taking a serious enough look at automation requirements to keep pace with global innovation? These are some of the important lines of questioning in our industry survey that's open for response until 2 June.
Participants will gain access to the full survey report and stand a chance to win one of five packaging line audits (conducted by business analysts from AccuPak, Robot Technologies-Systems Australia and AccuWeigh) plus one of three Apple watches.
What prompted this survey?
The Australian Food & Grocery Council’s State of the Industry Report 2016 stated that capital investment in the food and beverage sector has declined significantly for three years and is now back at levels not seen since the middle of the GFC in 2009-10. Food and grocery processing and packaging relies heavily on capital investment and when there is a reluctance to re-invest regularly to keep pace with global innovation and its associated productivity benefits, a vicious circle can occur where re-investment lags and returns inch lower over time, making capital investment even harder to attract.
This survey will seek input from individuals who are familiar with their company's operations so that we can gain insight into the challenges that Australian manufacturers are encountering, the strategic actions that they are intending to take, and the capabilities they are looking to acquire with their purchase of packaging line and/or robotics automation equipment.
We anticipate that the report flowing from this survey will provide industry stakeholders with important insights about current practices, drivers and future plans pertaining to the selection, purchase and commissioning of packaging equipment.
We expect that the report will help decision makers to make well-informed capital investment decisions and so may present an intervention to the aforementioned vicious cycle.
For a quick link to the 5-minute survey, click here.
Winners of the survey competition will be announced in the first week of June.
