Digitalization is re-shaping our industry as we know it

On 2 December, Marel hosted its Digitalization virtual event, where Arni Sigurdsson Chief Strategy Officer and EVP Strategic Business Units, Anna Kristin Palsdottir EVP Innovation, and Hjalti Thorarinsson VP Innova Software showcased Marel’s digital vision. They spoke to the ways in which digitalization will enhance Marel’s performance across its strategic pillars of modular line solutions, software, sustainability and growth. Following the keynote speeches, Roger Claessens EVP of Marel Poultry joined the panel for a lively Q&A. 

The digitalization event was part of Marel’s Capital Markets Day 360° mini-series, which provides a comprehensive overview of how Marel delivers growth—globally, digitally and sustainably.

Our cutting-edge software already has the largest installed base in the food processing industry. On top of this, Marel continues to introduce new digital products, which will result in a self-standing software revenue stream and will be reflected in revenues from 2024 onwards. Digitalization is also the foundation for predictive maintenance, which will lead to a stickier customer base and underscore Marel’s position as a trusted maintenance partner.

According to Sigurdsson, digital solutions that are easy to install, update and service give customers the agility to scale up their infrastructure as their needs grow. It also enables them to respond to increasing complexity in consumer-ready products and quickly shift between market channels. Ultimately, Marel’s standardized digital offerings underpin a business model that rests on higher customer engagement, greater recurring revenues, and a larger share of wallet. 

Connectivity is at the heart of Marel‘s digital journey

In their keynotes, Arni, Anna Kristin, and Hjalti gave insights into Marel’s growth strategy and roadmap in terms of connectivity, as well as the launch of new digital products. 

“Technology is in our DNA; and that’s hard to replicate. With integrated solutions and a scalable platform that enables us to provide the right solutions and connect the ecosystem across the entire value chain, our digital vision is to be the digital partner of choice for the food processing industry,” said Arni Sigurdsson.

Using the processing know-how and expertise gained through hands-on work with customers and over three decades of industry experience, Marel continues to advance its digital offerings to maximize connectivity between hardware, software, service, and spare parts. This enables Marel to provide its customers with holistic solutions that allows them to maximize value creation and address the most important environmental, social and governance concerns related to sustainability.

As the cornerstone of Marel’s digital strategy, greater connectivity has the potential to bolster the sustainability journeys of customers by supporting demand-driven value chains that maximize efficiency and minimize waste. 

Cloud-based analytics give unprecedented insight into real-time operations

Marel is a leader in automated food processing machines with comprehensive integration. On top of these, Marel offers customers a dynamic digital platform to optimize their operations through augmented data management. 

By enhancing Marel’s hardware using Internet of Things (IoT) endpoints and feeding more data into the Innova software which serves as a single source-of-truth application, Marel’s new platform provides customers with unprecedented insight into their operations.

Access to real-time and historic data insights enables customers to make optimal operational decisions, as well as allowing Marel’s technical helpdesks around the world to resolve issues faster, and to proactively support customers—even remotely. 

“[Through] connectivity, our customers gain greater insight into the performance of critical parts. By utilizing current and historic data, we optimize performance and prevent unexpected and unplanned downtime in the processing line. This takes us forward by leaps and bounds in predictive maintenance, allowing customers to maximize factory uptime and performance,” said Anna Kristin Palsdottir in her keynote.

Linking whole factories together on a single platform

Together, Marel’s portfolio of over 40 software products form an overall processing ecosystem. 

As an end-to-end solution, our software allows food processors to manage and connect individual machines. It offers actionable insights into methods of improving machine output. Through a single control panel, the data from multiple machines on a line level—and even multiple factories—can be connected. This, in turn, supports the centralization of data into a single-source-of-truth that performs, among other functions, trend analysis on historical and real-time data for better planning and decision making. It is built on industry-leading IoT solutions, designed with the latest security standards in mind. 

When discussing the next steps on Marel’s digital journey, “the future solution,” Hjalti Thorarinsson said, “can be best described as a hybrid cloud solution, which combines the best of on-premises and cloud technologies to enable control and factory uptime.”

Join us for our Capital Markets Day 360° mini-series

The 360° mini-series consists of five events, a virtual site visit to Marel in Iceland and four thematic sessions centered on key features of Marel’s unique equity story and the future of food processing: growth, global reach, digitalization and sustainability.

Register for upcoming virtual events in the 360° mini-series:

• Sustainability – 9 December - 3:00-4:30pm CET – info and registration

Watch on-demand recordings of past 360° virtual events:

• Marel in Iceland – a virtual site visit to Marel’s HQ, manufacturing and innovation cluster, in addition to key customer BRIM in the fish industry.
• Growth – watch the recording
• Global reach – watch the recording
• Digitalization – watch the recording