FOOD INDUSTRIES

Innovations in the automation industry impact other industry processes. This includes the food industry, which needs the same technology innovations that have improved the folding, sealing, taping, boxing, and picking and placing operations.

A food-processing-and-distribution company typically stores products in a warehouse before shipping them to customers. Inventory management is therefore important to the food-processing-and-distribution industry because of the large amount of products typically stored. Large amounts of stored products increase inventory cost and management cost and can reduce warehouse efficiency. Restated, inventory management should be the primary focus of the food-processing-and-distribution industry, especially for perishable foods. This study is therefore important to build up a system to predict possible forthcoming inventory. This study surveyed experts to identify key issues associated with inventory management in the food-processing-and- distribution industry, and analysed sequential patterns to find rules based on analytical results from the survey. This study also proposed a model for inventory prediction. Through this proposed prediction model, the best accuracy of inventory prediction could reach up to 66.3%. Through the sequential patterns based on expert opinions, the food-processing-and-distribution industry can manage inventory efficiently and accurately.