Since 1865, Arnott’s has delighted Australian families with its iconic range of biscuits. With over 1,045 products manufactured across 16 sites employing more than 4,000 people, Arnott’s proudly sources 75% of ingredients locally in Australia and New Zealand.
Since the 1960s, Arnott’s has pioneered the automation of their baking and packaging processes for single-variety biscuits. However, assembling the popular assorted packs presented a seemingly impossible automation challenge, requiring individual placement by hand.
From Cream Favourites and Family Favourites to High Tea Favourites and the Cheeseboard Cracker Assortment, these beloved packs feature biscuits such as Monte Carlos, Shortbread Creams, Delta Creams and various crackers arranged in dedicated vacuum-formed trays.
Unlike single-variety packs, which could be automatically packed directly from the production line, assorted packs required a complex and labour-intensive multi-stage process:
“This labour-intensive process created challenging repetitive work while increasing production costs and making consistent quality difficult to maintain at such high volumes.”
Facing these challenges, Arnott’s initially approached their traditional European machinery suppliers from Germany and Switzerland, who had provided their single-variety packing equipment for decades.
However, assessing the complexity of delicately handling and placing unique shapes, sizes and delicate compositions into precise packaging, they deemed an automated solution unviable.
Facing higher local costs, Arnott’s was determined to find an innovative and cost-effective solution that could work alongside the existing workforce to maintain the manufacturing of these iconic Australian products on home soil.
“For Australian manufacturers, the challenge is clear – either innovate to stay competitive or risk losing production to overseas facilities.
Our objective was to help Legrand maintain and strengthen their local manufacturing capabilities through intelligent automation.“- Andrew Hambly, Solutions General Manager at Applied Robotics
After evaluating several potential partners, Arnott’s partnered with Australian-owned Applied Robotics to tackle this unprecedented challenge. Rather than adapting existing machinery designs, Applied Robotics developed an entirely new concept centred around advanced robotics, machine vision and an end-to-end approach.
“The traditional European suppliers viewed the problem through the lens of conventional biscuit machinery,” says Andrew Hambly, Solutions General Manager at Applied Robotics.
“We approached it differently, leveraging vision systems and robotics to create a system that could replicate and improve upon the quality and consistency of human operators, while dramatically increasing throughput.”
Proof-of-concept before end-to-end development
As they were in uncharted territory, Arnott’s and Applied Robotics started with a six-month feasibility study to confirm the approach would work at scale. The team built and tested a single cell that could handle one biscuit variety with the necessary speed, precision and quality control.
After extensive testing proved the concept viable, they built the complete system that transformed the entire assorted pack production process:
Machine vision ensures quality control
A critical innovation was implementing advanced vision systems that could replicate and improve upon human quality inspection. These systems verify:
Maintained Australian manufacturing of iconic products
Processing up to 105 biscuits per second with consistent quality and minimal waste
Reduced repetitive manual labour to improve working conditions
Consistent quality control that exceeds human inspection capabilities
Flexible production capacity that can be adjusted to meet seasonal demand
The project established new global benchmarks for what is possible in biscuit packaging automation.
The system has been running successfully since 2012, continuing to package the assorted varieties of Arnott’s biscuits found on supermarket shelves today.
“This partnership exemplifies how Australian innovation can solve challenges that international suppliers considered impossible,” says Dr Wong.
“By combining Applied Robotics’ automation expertise with Arnott’s commitment to local manufacturing, we’ve created a solution that has kept the production of these iconic Australian products on home soil for well over a decade.”
