ISHIDA has revealed how the firm’s weighing and X-ray inspection technologies are delivering ‘unsurpassed levels of accuracy and pack quality’ for Poland’s largest producer of puffed grains.
OrganikAgro Foods utilises two Ishida 16-head 3-mix multihead weighers to handle three separate products for discharge into the same pack.
Quality control is provided by an Ishida IX-GA-4075 X-ray system that is said to detect ‘very small’ defects as well as many foreign bodies. Since introducting the multihead weighing technology, Ishida said OrganikAgro Foods has benefited from an increase in weighing accuracy, with the standard deviation for each pack only between 0.1 and 0.5g, depending on the target weight. This means food waste has been reduced. Ishida added that the 16-head multihead weighers also provide a more consistent weight accuracy for each ingredient.
The systems most commonly inspect puffed grains, flour or groats as a single product or in combination with ingredients such as strawberries. Inspection usually takes place on packed products as initial inspection of the bulk product has already been carried out during the grain expansion process.
Previously, a metal detector was used for inspecting packed grains. However, this was unable to detect non-metal foreign bodies such as small pebbles.
The machines are operating at up to 60 packs per minute, in-line with the maximum capacity of the downstream equipment.
A colour touch screen allows product parameters to be altered, stored and called up in a matter of seconds, while hygiene is boosted by the fact the hoppers on the multihead weighers can be easily removed for cleaning at washing stations located near the machines, which Ishida explained speeds up the cleaning process.
