HookAssist device
Description
HookAssist is a highly sophisticated and flexible manual assist device designed to aid in the complete set of cuts to both hind and forequarters for beef and possibly for sheep.
Compared to the RTL Beef Boning Unit, Proman Aitch Bone Puller or Teys Knuckle Puller, the HookAssist device is potentially more flexible as it could be used for a larger variety of boning tasks.
Benefits
The benefits of the HookAssist device are potentially the same as other manual assist devices:
- Large yield gains
- Reduced worker fatigue and strain injuries
- Increase in the potential labour pool
- Reduction in staff turnover
- Increased chain speeds in some cases
Availability
The HookAssist device is currently being trialled in an Australian red meat processing plant.
More information
Cobotics is a term coined in the 1990's by Professors Edward Colgate and Michael Peshkin of Northwestern University.
A Cobot is defined to be a robot for direct physical interaction with a human operator, within a shared workspace.
The term is derived from "collaborative robot", and indicates that cobots are designed to interact very closely with human operators. This is in stark contrast to the typical use of modern industrial robots, where fully automated tasks are undertaken with very little human intervention. According to the strict technical definition, a cobot is a passive device. That is, artificial forces introduced are strictly resistive and do not do work. Any active forces must be applied by the operator.
In 2006, MLA and AMPC initiated a process to adapt develop assisted systems for the red meat industry based in this Cobotics principle.
In August 2008, a demonstration of the HookAssist device was carried out at the Northern Melbourne Institute of TAFE (NMIT) to Australian beef and sheep processors and producers. During this week at NMIT the device was tried by a number of different boners as well as industry experts.
The device was used to perform the complete set of cuts on both hind and forequarters of a number of beef carcasses, as well as some boning tasks on sheep carcasses.
The device proved to be flexible enough to carry out all the tasks that were tried, these included: tenderloin, skirt, loin, aitch bone, rump, knuckle, chuck, topside, silverside, brisket, flank, among others (for one task it was determined that a subsequent device should have more pull force).