Plan Automation Technology Blog

Evaluating the Benefits of Automated X-Ray Inspection for Your Business

Posted by Mat Bedard on Fri, Aug 5, 2016 @ 10:08 AM

Eagle_FA Automated X-Ray InspectionAt this point, x-ray product inspection is a well-established technology with numerous benefits for processed food manufacturers throughout Canada and the U.S.A.

However, as beneficial as this technology is to your QA process, you might be wondering if x-ray product inspection technology is right for your company. After all, how can you be certain that the benefits of using automated x-ray inspection is worth the time, effort, and expense of integrating it into your production line?

Well, here are a few tips to help you decide whether or not automated x-ray inspection technology is right for your business:

1: Check the Most Common Cause of Contaminants in Your Production Line

Odds are that your familiar with the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) process. In this process, you assess your production step by step to establish your risk of foreign objects and other contaminants being added to your products, then select critical control points for placing product inspection stations to check for hazards.

During the HACCP process, you should be able to establish what your biggest contamination risks are, including:

  1. The type of contamination most likely to occur (metal, stone, plastic, organic, etc.); and
  2. Where in your production line the contamination is most likely to be introduced

Different product inspection systems are better-equipped to detect specific contaminants.

For example, if the vast majority of your contamination risks are metallic objects, the lowest cost system for countering these contaminants would naturally be a metal detector.

However, there are many contaminants that a metal detector can’t “see” because they aren’t ferromagnetic or electrically conductive. Materials such as rubber, bone, many rocks, wood splinters, glass, and plastic are invisible to metal detectors.

X-ray product inspection machines, particularly those equipped with MDX (material discrimination x-ray) systems are easily able to detect these kinds of contaminants in addition to many dense metals.

So, if your production line is at risk of contamination from more than just metal, x-ray product inspection may be your best choice.

2: Do You Need to Check Fill Levels or Weights?

X-ray product inspection machines provide more than just contaminant detection these days. Newer and more sophisticated x-ray technologies allow food manufacturers to check fill levels and weights in their sealed product packages just prior to being prepped for shipping.

Not only can the grayscale image snapshot of a standard, single-emitter x-ray machine make finding missing patties or other large objects in a package easy, the mass measurement capability of certain x-ray machines allows you to weigh packages.

This capability to ensure that your food packages are whole before shipping can help prevent customer complaints about incomplete or under-filled products. So, if your production plant has issues with fill level in product packages, x-ray product inspection can help.

3: Consider Chemical Lean Inspection Needs

If your company sells raw meat products such as steaks, ground beef, or pork products, a major part of your business is trying to accurately assess the fat content, or chemical lean, of that meat.

Traditional, lab-based testing methods take a long time to complete and require the destruction of the meat sample being tested, which limits the percentage of your product that you can actually test. So, you might check 500g of meat for every 10,000 pounds you process, which is not nearly enough to reliably establish the CL value of the meat being packaged.

DEXA-enabled x-ray inspection machines can asses the chemical content of meat products and provide a real-time analysis of the fat content of a meat sample. This lets you check the CL value of 100% of your meat product on the line, while also getting a contamination check.

So, if you’re a packaged meat seller, then DEXA x-ray inspection is an indispensable resource.

4: Consider Your Budget

Managing your company’s budget is always important. While we’d all like the latest and greatest hardware for every step of our production line, such investments aren’t always practical with the budget we have on hand.

However, one of the great things about x-ray inspection is the variety of device types that are available to choose from. Basic, single-emitter systems are more affordable than ever thanks to widespread adoption of the technology.

For companies with bigger budgets for product inspection and a need for more thorough analysis, there are MDX and DEXA dual-emitter systems that can pick up contaminants that other inspection machines would miss.

Whether you have a big operational budget, or a small one, there’s probably an x-ray inspection machine that can fit your needs and budget perfectly.

So, is an x-ray inspection machine right for your production process? In many cases, the answer may be yes. However, if you’re still not sure after going over the above tips, try contacting Plan Automation for an assessment of your product inspection needs.

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Topics: X-Ray Inspection