“Today I got to see Tweety!” Colleague Dirk talks about his visit to Bakkerij Mariën, located in Balen, Belgium. A new colleague recently started there: Tweety. Dirk is involved in the development of Tweety from his role in the Cotemaco project, a European project with stimulation to automate production processes. Tweety is a cobot: a robot intended to work together with people.

Staying close to the craft

A baker mainly wants to do what he is good at, stay close to his craft. This is also the case with the family business founded in 1958. A cobot helps the bakery to realize this. Tweety, the cobot owes its name to its color, contributes to a more efficient production process. Tweety takes over the heavy, repetitive and monotonous tasks such as filling and placing baking sheets in the oven carts. This leaves the bakery’s employees time to focus on the quality of the products. In concrete terms: thanks to Tweety, the ergonomics of the bakery are improved, and less food is wasted. A baker who can be busy with his profession again.

Working towards a future-proof production process

Baker: a bottleneck profession for many years. A profession for which it is difficult to recruit people. That is why we are looking for solutions to make the best possible use of the existing knowledge and craft of the company’s bakers. Via Cotemaco, the bakery was supported by thinking along about process automation and by connecting technological partners to the company.

It makes us happy to help companies set up a future-proof and efficient production process. We see, and more importantly, the owners of the bakery that it really works. They get better. That’s what we do it for.