Bühler has launched Insights™, one of the first cloud-based frameworks for digital services in the food and feed processing industry. The Bühler Insights platform combines the power of Bühler’s leadership in food processing with Microsoft’s leadership in delivering intelligent Azure cloud technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT) capabilities, and blockchain to unlock a new degree of food safety, traceability, transparency, and data intelligence.

In his keynote address at the annual Microsoft Ignite conference, Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, highlighted Bühler's critical role in the world's food supply and its work to use digital technology to ensure true food safety.

“Microsoft’s technology has made it possible to accelerate time to market and has allowed us to deliver real benefits and value to our customers,” added Stuart Bashford, Digital Officer at Bühler. "For manufacturers, that means reaching new levels of productivity. With the Bühler Insights, every machine in your plant can run as if your best operator is on the job around the clock."

Bühler currently has the capability to connect more than 85% of its solutions to Bühler Insights.

Bühler showcased a selection of its digital services at Microsoft Ignite, including MoisturePro, a cloud-based digital service that drives significant improvements in yield, reduces energy costs and the environmental footprint of thermal processing in the food and feed industry. Harnessing the power of cloud connectivity, it can deliver a return on investment of USD $300,000, translating to an annual energy savings of USD $20,000.

“Leveraging the power of the IoT and cloud technology we can make our expertise available to our customers at every stage of the drying process and drive real change,” says Paul McKeithan, Bühler’s Head of Digital Services. MoisturePro is just one of a suite of digital services available on Bühler Insights. Another is LumoVision, which can identify and remove corn (maize) that has been contaminated with toxic aflatoxin. Two additional image-processing Bühler Insights solutions are, GrainiGo™ for corn and TotalSense™ for rice. These solutions enable customers to assess raw material quality and trends, compare performance objectively and consistently, and store data for future analysis and traceability.

Click here for more information on Bühler’s digital solutions.