Ever since the pandemic, it’s been challenging to fill factory roles, and the frozen food industry is certainly no exception. Labor shortages have made meeting targets for many manufacturing industries if companies weren’t adequately prepared. A smaller staff means less manpower and fewer products. However, more issues arise following labor shortages.
Here, we’ll explore how labor shortages trigger a chain of production issues. We’ll also offer pizza automation solutions to combat the effects of labor shortages. Automating pizza production lines provides many safety benefits too, which we’ll discuss as well.
Even though labor shortages can severely affect a business, the automated solutions available not only address the shortage, but they actively improve frozen pizza production and safety standards too.
Labor Shortages and Pizza Automation
The most immediate effect of labor shortages in pizza manufacturing is that brands may not be able to meet targets. Sustained labor shortages can cause downtime, making brands fall behind competitors or even go out of business. However, in addition to decreased staffing, labor shortages can cause a number of issues in pizza automation, such as increased safety hazards, operating costs, and employee burnout.
Increased Safety Hazards
When a brand experiences a labor shortage, increased safety hazards may follow. Tired employees may make more errors, potentially leading to work-related injuries. The lack of oversight may result in contamination, putting the consumer at risk. These issues may cause downtime in the future, leading to further productivity loss in addition to that caused by the labor shortage. However, pizza automation can not only address the shortage but also improve food safety.
Increased Operating Costs
While it might not seem like operating costs would increase during a labor shortage, they can. Existing employees could argue for a raise because they’ve been taking on more work. This puts brands at a disadvantage– existing employees could leave because they aren’t being compensated enough, further contributing to the labor shortage a brand is experiencing. As a result, a label might need to provide increases in compensation, leading to increased operating costs with no sight of recuperated productivity. Nevertheless, pizza automation can increase productivity while reducing operating costs.
Increased Employee Burnout
Lastly, because the existing workforce is taking on extra work to make up for the labor shortage, existing employees are at higher risk for burnout. This could cause them to lose productivity or even quit, which would also contribute to the labor shortage. It’s difficult to help sustain employee motivation during labor shortages, especially when the labor shortages are sustained themselves. Pizza automation facilitates pizza production, allowing employees to focus only on their assigned tasks, preventing burnout.
These factors greatly affect pizza production, but pizza automation can minimize the effects of a labor shortage. Next, let’s take a look at how automating frozen pizza labor can improve production practices while lowering costs and effort.
Automating Frozen Pizza Labor
Automating frozen pizza labor brings a number of benefits to a pizza production line. Pizza automation solutions help brands withstand labor shortages, improve scalability, and conserve costs. While these benefits may seem obvious, their positive effects on production processes shouldn’t be understated or overlooked.
Withstand Labor Shortages
Most notably, automating frozen pizza labor grants brands the ability to weather fluctuations in the workforce. The more automated a brand’s assembly line is, the less reliant it is on human staffing. Certain pizza automation solutions, like those available at Quantum, allow labels to streamline their workforces. Such equipment requires minimal staffing for operating and maintaining the machinery. This also protects teams against employee burnout and human errors.
Improve Scalability
When a brand automates more of its production process, it can improve the scalability of its assembly line. More pizza automation solutions mean better capacity to increase production volume and facilitate R&D– as long as their automated equipment is built to do so. We’ve built our Quantum equipment to not only reduce a label’s dependence on human frozen pizza labor but to also facilitate brand growth. Quantum equipment can also ensure an increase in quality and consistency, even when a brand ramps up production.
Conserve Costs
Lastly, automating frozen pizza labor conserves costs. Automating more of an assembly line lowers labor costs, limits wasted ingredients, and reduces errors ultimately lowering operational costs. The right pizza automation solutions can lower these costs in multiple ways, in addition to combating labor shortages. With Quantum equipment, a labor shortage doesn’t mean a loss of productivity or revenue.
These benefits of implementing pizza automation solutions are quite significant. Doing so even improves business practices. However, there is another benefit that shouldn’t be overlooked– increased food safety in frozen pizza production.
Food Safety Benefits of Automated Frozen Pizza Production
Implementing pizza automation solutions increases food safety in frozen pizza production. Automation causes fewer employee injuries to occur and it lowers the risk of contamination, as long as the automated equipment is built with features to enhance safety.
Fewer Employee Injuries
The more automated a pizza production line is, the fewer employee injuries are likely to occur. While fewer people working around dangerous equipment lowers injury risk, equipment that offers safety features also lowers this risk. Quantum equipment is built with guards and blade coverings to prevent employee injuries. These features keep staff safe while remaining easy to clean and operate.
Lowered Risk of Contamination
Because fewer people are working on a frozen pizza production line, the risk of contamination is lowered as well. Employees can transfer bacteria, hair, and similar contaminants to food when they handle products. However, Quantum’s automated equipment significantly reduces the need for employees to handle food items. Because our equipment is easier to clean, staff will find it simple to wash and sanitize the equipment, preventing bacteria growth. These features lower the risk of contamination, greatly improving food and employee safety.
Maintain Productivity and Optimize Operations During Shortages With Quantum
At Quantum, we know how difficult meeting quotas is during labor shortages. A diminishing workforce means that brands can’t make the amount of products they need to in a world of increasing demand. That’s why we’ve designed our automated pizza equipment to require minimal staffing, helping brands reach targets and continue to connect with customers. Don’t let labor shortages affect your production process– contact us today to increase productivity even with a smaller staff.