Which Foreign-Body Detection System(s) Does Your Food Facility Need?
By Melissa Lind, contributing writer
With a multitude of choices in technologies for detecting foreign-body contaminants, company managers may avoid the hassle of choosing the right system by “doubling-up” with two types of contaminant detection systems. While this may help cover all bases, it may be an unnecessary expense.
Basic knowledge of metal detection and X-Ray inspection technology is widespread due to increasing security measures at airports and government buildings. These technologies, whether metal detection to identify moving metal or X-ray to detect density difference, are in use every day.
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Detection of food contaminants is a much more complex process that requires precision in a challenging environment. At security stations, target objects are large and stationary. In a food-processing line, contaminants are generally quite small and may be moving at a rapid speed in irregular spacing — making the process very challenging.
Both metal-detection and X-Ray technologies can detect very small objects at varying speed, but often the biggest challenge is in disregarding data coming from the packaging, the size of the product, or from environmental sources. While in most cases, newer systems are capable of ignoring interference, but false detection can be costly with line stoppages and loss of efficiency. To compensate, many food-processing managers have opted to have both systems in place at different points of the line, which may be overkill. As any type of technology is a significant investment, food processors should determine what type of equipment will suit the food product, the environmental conditions, and the company and then choose the right one, rather than opting for both.
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Metal detectors are often slightly-less costly than X-Ray inspection systems, but have some limits as to flexibility. Metal detection identifies all types of ferrous and non-ferrous metal, including aluminum. X-Ray detection is often slightly-more expensive than metal detection, but is much more flexible. It can detect most metals and other solid bodies, such as dense plastics, glass, bone, and rock, but does not do well with aluminum or small wires. Neither type easily identifies wood, paper, shells, insects, or hair but X-Ray inspection technology has the ability to detect other anomalies such as improper fills, counts, or seals.
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Choosing the right system is a matter of your company’s specific facility, product, and line configuration. Most systems can be set up with minimal training and easy user interface. Company managers should utilize vendor knowledge to assess whether a certain type of equipment will work in a particular facility. Some vendors can perform a test run of product for verification. Gathering information about the company, the technology, and its application will enable a company to select the right machine and not feel compelled to go for both.