Tyson Foods is stepping up its automation game.
The meat & poultry giant will spend $500 million on automation in 2022, more than seven times what it spent this year, CEO Donnie King told investors Dec. 11. Much of that effort will be devoted to automating the hardest line tasks with the highest turnover, such as deboning chicken carcasses. Tyson plans to spend $1.3 billion on automation over the next three years.
The “approach here is to take away the more difficult, higher turnover jobs,” King said. Tyson’s automation will return $450 million through increased production and reduced labor costs by the end of fiscal 2024, King said.
The company opened the Tyson Manufacturing Automation Center at its headquarters in Springdale, Ark., in 2019. The 26,000-sq.-ft. facility houses a machine vision technology lab, a lab that simulates a food production environment, training classrooms and space for team members to train in automation and robotics technology.
