Baking & Snack - July 2019 - 99

PACKAGING
Inline Quality Control

Effective X-ray and vision systems protect
consumers and baking and snack companies.
by Karlee Renkoski

For quality-conscious food manufacturers, seeing a package without any visual access to what's inside could be
worrisome ... and rightly so. Does the product have deformities that were missed upstream? Is a contaminant
hiding inside? These questions all come to mind, except
that nowadays, bakers and snack producers don't just have
to rely on faith in the process. They've got technology.
In addition to finding foreign objects such as metal,
glass, bone, stones, plastics or rubber in packaged products, X-ray technology and vision systems also count the
items, identify broken or missing pieces, measure the
mass or weight and verify package integrity, according to
Brian Barr, sales manager of packaging, Heat and Control.
And defective products can also be ejected.
While both inspection systems carry out similar tasks,
each have different abilities. As X-rays improve, they're
becoming more reliable with investigation as strong
beams scan through the product. Vision-based camera
systems detect mislabeling on a product, broken seals
or missing declarations of allergens, said Miles Kroner,
business manager of vision and serialization, Mettler
Toledo. This minimizes product recalls, retailer fines and
costly rework.
Baking and snack companies should ask themselves
if there's value to using both types of equipment on one
line for quality assurance and more product information. "Leveraging the software capabilities such as onboard diagnostics, quality-control performance verification routines, overall equipment effectiveness, image
library and quality control auto-reports allows custom-

ers to put a robust quality control program around the
equipment - ultimately helping them comply with audits and Global Food Safety Initiative-based standards,"
said Lanel Menezes, business manager at Mettler Toledo.
"The technology helps our customers further bolster the
overarching food safety program, keeping consumer
safety as the main priority."

Inspection equipment
flexibility for product
size, shape and
packaging is crucial.
Heat and Control

Interferences with imagery
With X-ray equipment and vision systems, image clarity
is everything. And there are a variety of factors that could
potentially obscure what's really going on in an item.
"Metal foils can make it difficult to see surface
defects or see through for X-ray technology," said
Joe Crompton, vice-president of robot technology,
BluePrint Automation. Additionally, the size of the foreign objects and product rates can prove challenging.
Mr. Barr has noticed that glass containers are consistently tougher applications to inspect. A combination of
products, packaging or potential contaminants can also
be difficult for a system to read when striving for safety.
Depending on the packaging, Mettler Toledo has a variety of X-rays to do the job. For example, its X37 side
beam system is designed for tall, rigid containers. Its X34
system - which will be exhibited at the International
Baking Industry Exposition held Sept. 7-11 in Las Vegas
- is for small packages, its X36 is for large-case products and its X38 is for pumped products. The company
understands that product presentation plays a significant role and that the inspection process must maximize

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