Visit almost any meat processing operation across the country and take inventory of its challenges, and invariably labor — or lack thereof — is No. 1. Among the solutions discussed, also invariably, is automation. Heck, interviews on the topic sometimes seem stuck on autopilot, too.

But in an industry whose products are disassembled from heterogenous animal carcasses, an industry that requires as much art as science, the use of automated equipment isn’t always a silver bullet. As we’re learning with each visit to a plant, processors are finding their legs in a balancing act of automation’s good and bad.

Undoubtedly, the increasing sophistication of meat processing equipment is helping processors modernize and optimize their operations, while also reducing costs and increasing output. Automated equipment and processes can, as operators relay, lower the need for manual labor, and even do so without eliminating jobs. The equipment can account for repetitive menial tasks, and for workers foster new knowledge and training that leads to better-paying positions.

As ideal as that is, though, the industry hasn’t exactly just pushed a button, walked out the door and let the machines do their thing. In fact, as processors tell it, considering how long it took for many to adopt automated machines in North America (compared with counterparts in Europe), they’re still trying to catch up to technology that is 10 years ahead of them.

And that’s where labor — that perpetual thorn — punctures the side again. Even with automated systems, labor is still a critical need. Considering the consistent churning of humans in and out of processing facilities, those systems can pose a problem if no one has the necessary training and experience to use it or — worse — fix it if it malfunctions.

In the current environment, a veteran operations executive with one of North America’s largest processors essentially told a room full of equipment manufacturers (I was there) earlier this year that they need to make their ma-chines easier to use. The Internet of Things, for example, produces too much data, he said.

Ease of use is but one consideration in this complex balancing act, which has processors and equipment manufacturers sharing the responsibility.

When you install an automated case packing line, and the most qualified operator gives their notice a month later (true story), have you sufficiently cross-trained others to keep things moving? Do you have the staffing necessary for such backup? Are you leaning on your equipment manufacturer sufficiently to assist in such training? Are you budgeting enough money to leverage that relationship to its fullest effect?

The list of questions is much longer than that, of course. There are the more preliminary and rudimentary ones: What type of product do you make? What level of quality do you want? Can you no longer afford manual labor?

Processors are in the middle of the process of getting their answers. Ultimately, those answers will determine when more advanced machinery is adopted more as a must-have than as a nice-to-have.

This article ran as the Editorial in the November issue of Meatingplace.

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