X-ray Product Inspection — Choosing The Right System
By Melissa Lind, contributing writer
With the technology in the food industry continuously expanding, food manufacturers, processors, and packagers have more choices than ever when it comes to X-ray systems for product inspection. As X-ray systems are a significant investment, it is more important than ever to make the right choice when it comes to a vendor.
Implementing an effective product inspection system is key to ensuring safety in the food supply chain. X-ray systems provide one of the most effective solutions at every level—manufacturing, processing, and packaging — but it’s not just the machine that needs careful consideration, but the whole system. Kyle Thomas, Strategic Business Unit Manager at Eagle Product Inspection, and a known industry expert, has given seven tips regarding areas to consider in choosing the right system and ensuring that an important investment doesn’t go to waste with inefficient implementation.
- Develop Your Strategy
Foreign body identification and removal is vital to protect both customers and reputation. Identification of contaminants also helps avoid costly recalls. Thomas states in his recent article that “Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) principals should be followed throughout the entire product line.” This starts by identifying vulnerable contamination points and the most likely contaminant threat whether it is glass, metal, plastic, rubber, or bone, and then selecting the technology that meets you where the threats are. HACCP principals help to prevent contamination and aid in compliance with the numerous safety guidelines including both international standards and FDA guidance.
- Determine Future Needs
When investing in a new system, future potential modifications need to be considered. Many today’s S-ray systems are flexible and some allow for upgrades, additional features and enhancements. Modern S-ray technology is versatile and allows for a variety of packaging, size, shape and texture. A new system should cover you now and in the future.
- Add-Ons
Today’s X-ray technology offers not only flexibility and diversity in terms of detecting contaminants in a wide variety of foods and packaging, some systems offer additional features for in-line quality checks. Additional features of many systems include counting and fill-checks, identification of missing material, seal integrity inspection, and damaged package assessments. These add-ons can help increase efficiency by ensuring that you aren’t overfilling or under filling — preventing waste and non-compliance.
- Documentation Processes
The development of international food safety standards is making compliance with requirements at the retailer and governmental level easier and your system should help, not hinder. New technologies can collect and document data, keeping historical data in networked systems. This makes the information easily retrievable to improve cost-efficiency not only in production, but also time and organizational efficiency when it comes to providing safety documentation.
- Cleaning Time
Routine maintenance shouldn’t be painful. The X-ray system should make maintenance of hygiene standards easy. Whether it is high pressure washing for wet-products, elimination of food debris, or chemical sterilization, X-ray systems should be robust enough to withstand cleaning processes that your product requires and areas that need hygiene maintenance should be easily accessible.
- On-Going Support And Service
Available support from the machine vendor may be a critical issue. Some manufacturers may run lines 24/7, while others only need support during regular business hours. The type of support the machine vendor can provide regarding emergencies, routine services, and remote access may be an important asset or liability for a particular system. Training service and preventative maintenance also warrant consideration. If the machine vendor can’t provide the support needed, the food producer can’t provide support to end line customers.
- Spare Parts
No one wants things to go wrong, but, if you’re a believer in Murphy’s Law, they can and will. When choosing product inspection equipment, consideration should be taken with regards to where spare parts will come from in the event of a breakdown. The tech provider’s network of technical assistance and spare parts may become an issue. Ensuring that the right help can arrive in the right amount of time will save money in the long run.
As a final thought regarding the selection and implementation of product inspection technology, Thomas gives this advice: “In the end, the costs of implementing and maintaining an effective X-ray inspection system are much lower that the potential costs of product contamination. Can your business really afford to be without one?”