Customers

Target AG invest in AI to enhance customer satisfaction and efficiency

Written by John Albert | Jun 25, 2024 7:30:37 AM

“Delivering consistently superior quality onions is always the top priority as your work to keep your customers happy. The quality obviously begins in the field and is highly dependent upon the dynamic growing and weather conditions you face every year. On the other hand, advanced grading and sorting technology is a crucial component in ensuring that the quality of our packed onions remains consistent regardless of the quality of the raw product. This technology is our insurance policy to ensure that your customers remain satisfied regardless of growing conditions or the quality of the product arriving from the field."


"In 2012, we were struggling with the performance and reliability of our existing grading technology and Erwin Bakker and John Albert helped our company transition to Ellips’ remarkable onion grading and sorting solution. The following year, Ellips Internal Quality technology made a dramatic difference in our ability to deliver consistent quality to our customers even as we dealt with significant internal quality issues during that season. Since those early years, we have maintained an excellent working relationship with Ellips."

"To keep pace with our continued growth and operational objectives, Target AG has continued
to embrace innovative processes and technology. For example, in 2023, we became an early adopter of artificial intelligence when we upgraded to Ellips’ True-AI technology which significantly improved the detection of challenging defects and product characteristics. This capability further enhanced our grading performance and ability to react to our customer’s unique quality standards."

For the upcoming season, Target AG will install a new Ellips/Elisam onion grading machine which will deliver additional capacity and the flexibility necessary to better serve their customers with two state-of-the-art onion sorting lines.

Over the past few years, Target AG has faced the following challenges:

  • The need to serve a variety of customers and markets. They demand different quality standards so you must have extreme flexibility in order to adapt your grading to meet their diverse needs.
  • The onion market has very strict quality requirements that must be achieved. You need cutting-edge technology that can accurately capture the external and internal quality of your onions with an eye for the smallest details . 
  • Despite varying growing and weather conditions which can impact quality, you must be able to deliver consistent quality to your customers. Ellips’ grading technology 
ensures that we can consistently deliver the high-quality onions that our customers expect.
  • Maintaining a high production volume is crucial to stay in the business. Increasing capacity while reducing costs is our top priority for growth. You want to be able to process your onions as quickly as possible to cut costs, save time and keep margins attractive.
  • Manual sorting and packing is extremely tedious, expensive and time consuming. It is critically important that your production capacity does not decrease and your costs due not increase due to product quality issues.


    Results


    Following are a few of the benefits that Target AG has achieved since its adoption of True-AI: 

    ✅ Improved quality consistency with powerful defect detection 

    ✅ Increased throughput due to the faster processing speed and lower costs due to a reduction in sorting labor 

    ✅ Enhanced ability to react to dynamic customer demands while optimizing returns by ensuring that every onion ends up in its rightful place





About Target AG 

Target AG Production, LLC has been a premier supplier of high-quality onions since 1996, offering fair pricing and a range of services including onion topping, processing, storage, and shipping. Over the past 23+ years, the company has expanded its loyal customer base and driven innovation in the onion industry. Target AG prioritizes strict quality standards and adapts to meet all customer needs, ensuring superior products and customer-focused services. 



Commitment and consistency are the key to long-term success

"We’ve always kept our word, regardless of whether it was a good or bad year. Early on, my son Kerrick and I decided to commit to year-round pricing contracts. We’ve consistently honored these contracts, even when the market price was much higher. This persistent approach has earned us the loyalty of our clients. As a result, we secure annual and multi-year contracts regularly and our philosophy of keeping our word has proven successful."

 

Main goals and challenges


1. Deliver consistent quality to uphold our reputation 

“Delivering consistent quality in a competitive market with a challenging product that has quality variations is crucial to maintaining your company’s reputation. Every day you must meet the strict market standards for size and quality including shape, color and external and internal defects. The human eye itself cannot fully judge quality and it is extremely important to find a camera system that provides the best performance."

2012 
"In 2012, we engaged Ellips to install their optical grading solution on our existing sizer. This implementation was a remarkable moment for Kerrick, and me.  We turned the system on andit worked perfectly."

2023 - 2024
"This year’s winter was particularly challenging. We encountered many defective onions from a specific variety. However, the Ellips True-AI technology performed exceptionally well for us, as it did for other packers who were utilizing the True-AI solution.  Our external and internal defect detection performance was significantly improved.” 


2. Increase your processing speed in order to handle increased volume 


“To maintain a healthy profit margin, you must  run a cost-effective operation. We focus on efficiency to avoid incurring excessive costs per onion. With rising labor costs and shortages, it’s essential to have grading technology that can quickly process all the onions. High throughput enables handling larger volumes which enables the company to scale up and grow. Time is another important factor. Our workforce is loyal, and we must reciprocate by ensuring they have a good quality of life, especially since they had to work long hours last year for example. By processing products faster, we can complete tasks sooner, benefiting everyone involved.” 

2012 
"Beginning in 2012, we adopted Ellips’ electronic grading technology.  This technology was a significant improvement over our older solution which delivered inconsistent sizing, virtually no defect detection and was very unreliable. With Ellips-Elisam, we were able to increase our throughput by nearly 30% while dramatically improving product quality and consistency."

2024 
"AI technology has significantly enhanced our production line by boosting throughput. Previously, when running lots with very uneven quality, they had to be graded at lower speed to accurately identify defects. Today, we can maintain a high speed during this process thanks to True-AI. This increased speed did necessitate  the need for additional bagging equipment to effectively manage increased production rates."


3. Flexibility to meet different customer demands 

"With True-AI, you can consistently guarantee the quality of your onions, no matter the quality
of the batch. AI provides the flexibility to quickly respond to different conditions and market demands. AI’s ability to identify complex defects and onion characteristics is truly remarkable. The combination of advanced AI technology and improved onion varieties has greatly enhanced our overall product quality."
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