Thanksgiving day has arrived, and as an automationist, you know there’s a smarter way to cook a turkey. Applying your expertise of smart manufacturing can help bring the perfectly roasted turkey to your holiday dinner table. Here are some tips to cooking a turkey with the easy, and automated way.

Proper Temperature Control
It can not be stressed enough that proper temperature control of your oven is important to roasting a turkey. Applying a PID control loop to your home oven is a necessity. Various temperature controllers and/or a PLC can be used for this step in the process. You will need to do some homework first to determine how to tamper with your home oven to integrate the feedback control loop. Warning – this step may void your oven’s warranty, but will be worth it when you serve the perfectly cooked turkey to your family and guests.

Use a Digital Twin before you start and while cooking
Create a digital twin of your turkey so that you can simulate various cooking methods and temperatures before starting on the actual cooking. Then use the turkey twin while roasting to check on the expected roasting outcomes.

Use Your Cloud Services to Remotely Monitor from the Other Room
We know you can’t stay in the kitchen all morning while the turkey is cooking. Use the IoT and cloud services to monitor your turkey’s performance while in the living room, or elsewhere in the house.

Set Alarm Points
Be sure to set your alarm points properly to know when your turkey is out of the process tolerances. Do not ignore your alarm indications.

Workflow Control
Setup a workflow control system, with proper escalation paths if you are unable to complete the assigned task in a timely manner. Proper workflow control and documentation is important to provide consistent results year-after-year, especially as family members may change between holidays.

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Photo by Gabriel Garcia Marengo on Unsplash