Stealth dual purpose knocking box

The Stealth Dual Purpose Knocking Box project at JBS Rockhampton aimed to install and validate a Jarvis-developed, dual-purpose (pneumatic and electrical) beef knocking box. The project’s core objectives were to:

• Reduce operational noise and animal vocalisation (improving animal welfare)
• Enable advanced Industry 4.0 data capture (animal weight, RFID, and imaging at slaughter)
• Facilitate electrical stunning to eliminate skull cracking, supporting religious slaughter requirements and expanding access to high-value export markets
• Monitor and improve yield and quality, including tracking ecchymosis, bruising, and contamination

The project was successful at installing the Stealth Dual Purpose Knocking Box and allowed the trailing of the electrical stunning. The new stealth Knocking box is quieter and does promote better entrance into box by animals. It works effectively when employing pneumatic stunning but electrical stunning requires many operations to be completed at the same station before animal moves on, causing reduced production speeds. 

The stealth box continues to be used by JBS Rockhampton but the pneumatic stunning was ceased during the trial due to the inability to meet operational production speeds.