Johnsonville Moves to Cloud to Accelerate Automation

Johnsonville is turning to cloud to accelerate their digital transformation initiatives and streamline manufacturing. 

The company is integrating a cloud-based integration platform as a service (iPaaS) and workflow automation technology from Jitterbit that's expected to expand process efficiency and improve automation of their “hire to retire” processes. The technology will further automate their manufacturing processes by analyzing data for integrated planning and sharing data and insights with the shop floor.

“As one of the longest-standing sausage brands in the country, we were ready to evolve our technology infrastructure, leveraging the data integration provided by a complete iPaaS platform to boost efficiency and ROI,” said Paul Townsend, IT director of solution delivery and support at Johnsonville, in a statement. 

Anticipated benefits of the new integration include:

• Reduced manual work: On-premise mission-critical systems will be automated 
• Optimized manufacturing processes: Each manufacturing facility will have access to Johnsonville’s recipe management system, helping them to optimize operations. 
• Real-time process execution: Through the platform's API manager, Johnsonville can streamline its workflows and achieve real-time process execution to empower its business operations. 

Johnsonville Tech Upgrades

In business for almost 80 years, Johnsonville is increasingly beefing up its tech stack, including  integrating AI to streamline business operations. The company recently integrates a knowledge assistant platform to help employees obtain answers to pressing questions and find missing files without bothering their coworkers.

That platform is integrated with Microsoft SharePoint, Teams, industry information websites, and vendor RSS feeds, and employees can get answers simply by asking questions in a private or group teams chat or through a dedicated website. 

The company also invested in Soft Robotics, a tech provider working on robotics solutions to support labor shortages within food processing environments. The $26 million investment was made alongside Tyson Foods. It will help Soft Robotics expand its mGripAI robotic picking solutions that enable robots to have the same hand-eye coordination as humans.