Watching a batch of cereal being made at the Post Consumer Brands plant in Tremonton can feel like a trip into a futuristic factory.
A visitor could witness machines either shredding wheat, turning flour into dough and then puffing it, cutting sheets of dough into squares or milling corn and rice and turning it into flakes. Automation is used in each step of turning basic grains into bagged or boxed cereal. Then, a robotic arm packages the cereal and places it into boxes on pallets ready to ship out to destinations in all 50 states.
“It makes us provide a more consistent product,” says Mark Suchan, the plant manager in Tremonton for Post Consumer Brands. “It helps us deliver a consistent quality and taste profile that our consumers are looking for. It also requires a more skilled worker. Our team members here have to have the skills to be able to operate highly automated pieces of equipment and troubleshoot those pieces of equipment.”
Technological advances have transformed manufacturing in Utah. Manufacturing jobs in the Beehive State do not fit with a stereotypical image of a row of blue-collar workers manning an assembly line in a darkened, dirty and cavernous plant, putting together a product by hand. Read More……