Food safety managers today face increasingly complex challenges as they navigate heightened regulatory requirements1,2 and vulnerabilities while managing the high expectations of consumers, all while dealing with a shortage of qualified professionals in the workforce.3 Despite their best efforts, food facilities still struggle with foundational food safety challenges.4 The latest data from FDA5 indicate that about 50 percent of the inspection citations between 2009 and 2023 are related to fundamental issues such as failure to maintain building and physical assets, improper facility layout, lack of sanitation monitoring, failure to provide adequate screening against pests, or lack of implementation of HACCP plans.
Whether a small business or a large corporation, proper maintenance and routine inspections are crucial for ensuring smooth operations. These inspections not only help with regulatory compliance but also early-stage detection of process and product failures.6 However, these routine inspections demand a high level of precision, uniformity, and dependability to meet safety, environmental, and operational benchmarks. They are often time-consuming, resulting in a significant commitment of staff resources. Moreover, for most manual and visual inspection tasks, missed defects typically range from 20 to 30 percent.7 Can the deployment of autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) augment the efforts of food safety professionals by helping them perform inspections?