Digital transformation becomes ' yeast ' to advance the bakery industry

Considered as one of the most traditional branches in the economy, the bakery sector invests in cultural change within the business of various sizes to grow sustainably. Among the challenges is the lack of skilled labor to operate new technologies and restricted investment capacity. "Classic production models are no longer efficient as before. The consumer's perception of how the products and services of a given business are developed assumes the foreground and, consequently, the ability of the entrepreneur to know customers is fundamental, "said the director of the Innovation program Business InovaLab, Fernando Domingues. For the specialist, even if this market specifically registers a large number of small family businesses, the need to invest in automation and regionalized operations based on consumer consumption "becomes a must". "We realized that many businesses are taking advantage of this scenario as an opportunity. One example of this is the strategy of customizing products according to the consumption habits of the neighborhoods where they operate. The same network of bakeries can use different ingredients in distinct regions and expand the portfolio and scale power of the 4.0 industry concepts, "he explained. He also highlights that he sees family businesses in the chain decentralizing decisions and giving more freedom to collaborators who are already born imbued by digital culture, named as millennials. Billing according to the Brazilian Association of Bakery and Confectionery industry (ABIP), the revenues of this sector reached R $92.6 billion in 2018, resulting in an increase of 2.8% over the previous year. Overall, the average ticket had a high of R $3.91% on the same basis. The innovation and technology manager of the National Service of Industrial Learning (Senai), Oswaldo Lahoz, follows the same reasoning: there will be no technological progress in the sector without an investment in the qualification of skilled labor. "We currently perceive the existence of a bottleneck with regard to the training of professionals to operate these innovations. It is necessary that all the production courses are updated to stay at the level compatible with the rapid transformations that we are witnessing, "said Lahoz, noting that Senai bets on this constant revision of the curriculum as" crucial "in this new Dynamic. Less waste according to the entity manager, one of the concepts that are being implemented within the entire industry chain is lean manufacturing, whose principle is based on reducing raw material waste and optimizing processes in a manufacturing Leaner. "Many businesses consider that a large volume of capital is needed for investments in technology, but the mere fact of starting to revise operations that have waste can already be considered a first step. Moreover, the installation of intelligent sensors in the gondolas is already reality and can help a lot in the organization of stocks ", complemented. One of the examples of players in the food production chain attentive to this new market dynamics is the Sina group, which provides food to other agents in the foodservice segment. "Since 2018, our entire production line has undergone a redesign that has been involved since the implementation of new technologies and machinery to review possible waste. Last year, the invested amount turned around R $6.5 million. For 2019, the forecast is that this capex [amount of capital contributed] reaches R $12.5 million ", argued the industrial director of Grupo Sina, Fernando Barbosa. The executive recalled that there is an intention to maintain this pace of investment as the economy generally evolves. Still according to him, the installation of new technologies in the production line made the bottleneck in relation to the lack of qualification for handling new machinary become more evident. "We realized that it was better to qualify the collaborators already hired than to replace them with others more familiar with these technologies," he added. Today, Foodservice represents 47% of the group's turnover