The food production industry, especially the meat production sector, faces many challenges that have even escalated due to the recent outbreak of the energy crisis in the European Union. Therefore, efficient use of input materials is an essential aspect affecting the profit of such companies. This paper addresses an optimization problem concerning the purchase and subsequent material processing we solved for a meat processing company. Unlike the majority of existing papers, we do not concentrate on how this problem concerns supply chain management, but we focus purely on the production stage. The problem involves the concept of alternative ways of material processing, stock of material with different expiration dates, and extra constraints widely neglected in the current literature, namely, the minimum order quantity and the minimum percentage in alternatives. We prove that each of these two constraints makes the problem \mbox{$\mathcal{NP}$-hard}, and hence we design a simple iterative approach based on integer linear programming that allows us to solve real-life instances even using an open-source integer linear programming solver. Another advantage of this approach is that it mitigates numerical issues, caused by the extensive range of data values, we experienced with a commercial solver. The results obtained using real data from the meat processing company showed that our algorithm can find the optimum solution in a few seconds for all considered use cases.

India s operational stock of industrial robots hit all time high. Sales of industrial robots in India reached a new record of 4,945 units installed. This is an increase of 54 percent compared to the previous year (2020: 3,215 units). In terms of annual installations, India now ranks in tenth position worldwide. These are findings of the report World Robotics, presented by the International Federation of Robotics (IFR).

The stock of operational robots around the globe hit a new record of about 3.5 million units – the value of installations reached an estimated 15.7 billion USD.

The stock of operational robots around the globe hit a new record of about 3.5 million units – the value of installations reached an estimated 15.7 billion USD. "Robots play a fundamental role in securing the changing demands of manufacturers around the world," says Marina Bill, President of the International Federation of Robotics. "New trends in robotics attract users from small enterprise to global OEMs." Energy efficiency is key to improve companies' competitiveness amid rising energy costs. The adoption of robotics helps in many ways to lower energy consumption in manufacturing.

China now has more industrial robots per 10,000 workers than the United States, according to the International Federation of Robotics (IFR). This is the first time China has surpassed the United States in robot density. In 2021, China averaged 322 industrial robots for every 10,000 employees. According to the IFR, China saw a huge jump in robot installations in 2021. The country's industrial robotics market saw 243,300 installations last year, a 44% increase from the year before.

One unresolved issue in negotiations between terminal operators and the trade unions representing longshore workers on the West Coast is which terminals will be automated, and what will happen to the truck drivers and other port workers who will lose their current jobs as a result. Similarly, labor shortages and management's response to them in America's railroad industry were at the heart of recent negotiations between unions and employers. Rail companies have proposed eliminating train conductors entirely, and fully automating their trains. History shows that, while automation typically takes over some of the tasks performed by humans, over time companies shift workers into different types of jobs, especially in tight labor markets. But, as was the case with the 19th century weavers known as Luddites, more automation can lead to smaller workforces in the short term, as well as worse conditions for workers.

Sales of industrial robots have reached a strong recovery: A new record of 486,800 units were shipped globally – an increase of 27% compared to the previous year. Asia/Australia saw the largest growth in demand: installations were up 33% reaching 354,500 units. The Americas increased by 27% with 49,400 units sold. Europe saw double digit growth of 15% with 78,000 units installed. These preliminary results for 2021 have been published by the International Federation of Robotics.

The use of robots responds to the UN s call for action,

The market for professional service robots reached a turnover of 6.7 billion U.S. dollars worldwide (sample method) – up 12% in 2020. At the same time, turnover of new consumer service robots grew 16% to 4.4 billion U.S. dollars. This is according to World Robotics 2021 – Service Robots report, presented by the International Federation of Robotics (IFR). "Service robots continued on a successful path proving the tremendous market potential worldwide," says IFR President Milton Guerry. "Sales of professional service robots rose an impressive 41% to 131,800 units in 2020."

Robot mobility is booming worldwide: Unit sales of Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) in the logistics sector e.g. will increase by 31% between 2020 and 2023 annually. At the same time, the use of AMRs in public environments will also go up rapidly – IFR predicts unit sales will grow by 40% per year worldwide. How mobility is reshaping robotics and why this is a game-changing revolution has been researched by the International Federations of Robotics and published in the new paper "A Mobile Revolution". "Mobile robots have traditionally operated in industrial settings to transport parts throughout the factory or feed machines," says Milton Guerry, President of the International Federation of Robotics. "Today, AMRs also work in applications where contact with the general public is intended. They provide information to shoppers, deliver room service orders in hotels or support police officers by patrolling city areas. IFR s mobile revolution paper gives an overview of the main use cases for mobile robots and their most significant impacts."