From Manual to Automatic – Understanding the Automation Spectrum in Packing & Palletizing

The decision to automate packing and palletising operations is one of the most strategic investments a food, flour, or feed producer must make. But automation is not a binary state – it spans a spectrum from fully manual to semi-automatic to fully automatic systems. Each level presents a different set of trade-offs in terms of cost, labour dependency, output, and operational consistency. These factors vary across geographies and industries and therefore affect profitability differently. One size does not fit it all in these industries.

This article provides an overview of the three system types, outlines when to consider upgrading, and clarifies the long-term business case of automation based on industry data and real-world examples. While we focus predominantly on packing and palletizing systems, many of the discussed considerations can be applied to any other processing industries as well.

1. Three Levels of Automation

Manual Systems

Manual systems rely almost entirely on human labour for bag placement, filling, closing, and palletizing. They are typically used in low-throughput environments or in regions where labour remains readily available. Capital expenditure is low, but operational costs are high and dependent on shift performance. One of the simplest manual bagging setups is a storage bin feeding into a spout with a manual flap to open and close the spout. The operator discharges the product into the bag, which is placed on a floor scale until the bag reaches its target weight. Subsequently, the operator manually adds or removes missing/respectively surplus products with a scoop until the target weight is achieved.

Semi-Automatic Systems

Semi-automatic lines automate specific functions – such as weighing, dosing, or stitching – while retaining human involvement in bag handling, palletizing or truck loading. These systems offer a cost-effective balance between flexibility and output. They are widely used in mid-capacity plants and operations with moderate labour costs, such as emerging markets. Among the most common systems are semi-automated carousels and single-spout packers.

Fully Automatic Systems

Fully automatic systems use integrated machines for bagging, sealing, and (optionally) robotic palletizing. Bag pick-up, filling, weighing, sealing, and stacking are executed with minimal human interaction. These systems are suited for high-throughput operations requiring consistent quality, reduced labour dependency, and compliance with food safety and traceability requirements.

The table below summarises the three system types, their typical throughput, labour requirement and use cases:

2. When does automation make sense?

Not every plant requires full automation from day one. The decision should be driven by key operational conditions:

• Labor availability: In many regions, operators are hard to recruit or train. Automation helps protect operations from staff turnover and absenteeism.

• Cost pressure: Labor-intensive processes are subject to rising wages and regulatory costs. Over time, automated systems reduce OPEX significantly.

• Required throughput: As production scales, so must the packaging line. Manual systems can quickly become bottlenecks.

• Product quality and food safety: Reducing human contact supports hygiene and traceability.

• Standardization: For companies running multi-plant operations, automation supports harmonized quality and reporting standards.

Too often the discourse around the best degree of process automation is dominated by the trade-off between capital expenditures (CAPEX) and operational expenditures (OPEX). The higher the degree of automation, the higher the upfront investment into equipment (capital expenditures) all things being equal. Vice versa, the lower the capital expenditures, the higher the operational expenditures.

An equally important consideration is flexibility vs. consistency and standardization. The higher the degree of automation, the more consistent and standardized will be plant’s output. An automated line needs considerable resources to be set up for a narrowly specified task, which it then executes with unmatched efficiency. Changing the specification requires additional resources in terms of investment, changeover times and staff training. Consequently, less automation brings higher flexibility both in terms of product specification as well as geographical relocation if ever required.

For example, Irene Yuan Suan describes in her book ‘The Next Factory of the World’ the different approaches of apparel manufacturing that Chinese entrepreneurs follow in African countries like Nigeria and Lesotho: While some follow the route with minimized CAPEX in the form of a few sewing stations and hundreds of factory workers engaging in manual labour, others invested several million US-dollars in automatic sewing lines. Everyone who has ever worked in Africa or similar demanding environments understands the taxing nature of operations that depend on high quantities of unskilled labour. At the same time, African veterans understand that the business environment can change in a heartbeat: Regime changes, trade barriers such as import/export bans or tariffs, the availability of raw materials or political unrest are only a few regularly occurring risks with big business impacts. Moving operations from one country or jurisdiction to another is easier if production assets can easily be liquidated or relocated. To stick with the example from above: Moving a few sewing heads out of a rented warehouse, setting up operations somewhere else and hiring new workers, though painful, is easier done than trying to liquidate or move large machinery in an environment where creditors and business partners perceive to be in a bear market. This dynamic does not only apply to the apparel industry but all manufacturing industries including flour, feed and food processors.

The next paragraph shows the relationship between automation degree and total cost of ownership with a real-life example of a mid-sized flour mill.

3. Cost vs. Value Over Time

While manual systems often win on capital expenditure, fully automatic systems consistently outperform when evaluating total cost of ownership (TCO). The next paragraph shows the relationship between automation degree and total cost of ownership with a real-life example of a flour producer, who upgrades his packing line from a semi-automatic to a fully automatic:

Upgrade from a semi-automatic to a fully automatic packing system:

ROI based on labour cost savings:

In this case study, the labour-related cost improvements resulted in a breakeven after three years:

This miller only upgraded his packing systems. A complete automatization of the end-of-line will provide even greater savings over time due to the cost of labour expenses during the palletizing, warehousing, and truck-loading process.

Additional savings and their impact on ROI:

Beyond labour savings, fully automatic solutions offer additional benefits, that further reduce OPEX and therefore shorten the payback period:

• Lower giveaway: Dosing accuracy of ±0.2% saves 0.1 – 0.2% of annual product volume.

• Reduced spillage: Reduced flour spillage during the packing process.

• Higher yield: Tight seal integrity minimizes spillage and spoilage during distribution

• Reduced downtime: Autonomous operation minimizes human error and increases overall equipment effectiveness (OEE)

For the sake of this article, we will look in more detail at the impact of decreased giveaways and reduced flour spillage.

Lower give away

The giveaway describes the amount of product that processors must overfill their bags on average to ensure that all bags meet the specified weight. Usually, check weighers are installed after the packing unit to eject any bag that does not fulfil the target weight. Due to the higher accuracy of around 0.1% to 0.2% of most well-engineered automatic packing systems, the actual bag weight will be closer to the target weight. This translates into savings, which add up to a sizeable sum:

Sticking to the previous case study, two automatic packers OMP-2090 B at 900 bags per hour for 9 hours of operation per day, saving 25g per bag over 6,000 hours (each machine running for 3,000 hours) equals ~135 tons/year. At an average bakery flour price of $250/ton, that’s $33,750 in total recovered value or $16,875 per machine.

Reduced product spillage

Product spillage during the bagging process refers to the amount of product that is not correctly placed in the bag but falls to the ground or accumulates on the interior of the machine. This type of spilled product is unfit for human consumption. It is either sold as a by-product to the feed industry or disposed of as an even lower-grade product depending on the regulations of the respective country.

From tests carried out by Bühler Premier Tech experts showed a wide range of product spillage across technologies and suppliers in the market. Carousels, automated carousels and open-mouth baggers were part of the testing series. The highest measured product spillage was around 3g per 25 kg bag while the lowest was 0.65g per bag, as achieved by the automatic flour packer OMP-2090 B. With the bottom-up filling technology, even lower values are possible: The bag holder adjusts its relative positive to the feeding spout during the filling process. This further reduces flour spillage and dust emission, but the increased complexity of the technology carries a higher price point, which can challenge a reasonable return on investment, especially for high-volume, low-value commodity products such as flour or starch.

For the sake of comparability, we will continue comparing a semi-automatic carousel flour packer with the fully automatic OMP-2090 B. The carousel recorded a flour spillage of 1.15g per 25 kg bag. Compared with the 0.65g for the OMP-2090 B, the difference is 0.5g per bag.

3,000 operational hours per annum per machine or 6,000 operational hours for two machines at a bagging speed of 900 bags per hour and average flour spillage savings of 0.5g per bag will amount to yearly savings of 2.7 tons or $675 per annum. While the monetary savings are non-substantial, reduced flour spillage also improves plant hygiene and safety since flour residues and flour dust carry risks such as pest infections and dust explosions. A clean mill contributes to a positive brand image, not only towards the final consumer but also direct customers such as retailers and bakeries as well as regulatory offices.

Flour mill operators must also understand the delicate balance that a perfect aspiration system must strike. While too much aspiration will ensure a clean plant with less flour spillage in the packing machine, it will increase air consumption and the product loss as filter flour. Filter flour is the flour that has been aspirated via the various aspiration points along the process. Like the flour that fell to the ground, filter flour is not fit for human consumption and hence carries a lower monetary value. The perfect sweet spot in the aspiration setup is the equilibrium in which the sum of both spilled product and filter flour is the lowest. For this and many other reasons that exceed the scope of this article, professionally engineered aspiration systems are key for any industrial-scale mill.

Other aspects to consider:

Energy, compressed air, and aspiration air consumption also vary with the degree of automation. Although their impact on the return on investment is comparatively less, automatic solutions usually require equal or slightly more of all three utilities compared to semi-automatic solutions. In terms of savings due to higher accuracy and lower OPEX, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages by a large margin. Nevertheless, flour, feed, and food companies must monitor closely the developments of upcoming mandatory CO₂e quantification, reduction, and taxation as well as the impact of utility consumption and product losses on sustainability KPIs.

Conclusion

The decision to automate packing and palletizing operations is a matter of strategic fit. It is shaped by local labour realities, cost structures, capacity needs, and risk exposure. While manual and semi-automatic systems offer flexibility in volatile or early-stage environments, the long-term advantages of fully automatic systems are clear when consistency, food safety, and cost control are critical. As the case study illustrates, on top of major savings on labour, even modest reductions in giveaways can translate into substantial value over time. Beyond economics, automation supports safer working conditions, cleaner production environments, and greater resilience in a dynamic global market.

Please feel free to share your thoughts about and experience with automatic of-line solutions in your specific market in the comments: Insights and perspectives from different geographies are welcomed. What degree of automation is currently being used across plants in your markets, and what barriers are still preventing upgrades in key regions?

Preview: The next article will focus on the various machines and conveying elements that constitute an automatic packing and palletizing line.