Are you ready for product scrutiny?

Quality inspection is especially critical in food and beverage manufacturing and packing. Preventing defective products from entering the supply chain not only saves time and money but also prevents product recalls and potentially expensive legal costs.

An unreadable barcode or incorrect expiry date can result in perfectly good products being recalled and discarded. Clear markings are a top priority for all food and beverage products owing to increasingly strict legislations.

The Consumer Protection Act was implemented to prevent exploitation or harm to consumers by regulating the way in which businesses interact with consumers and market their products and services. Packaging and labelling must now adhere to certain standards. Food Labelling Regulations (R146) were also introduced to ensure a standardised approach among all food and beverage manufacturers.

As production lines become more automated, inspection and quality control need to follow suit. These types of systems can improve a line’s effectiveness, by performing tasks quickly and accurately. The real benefits materialise when ‘smart’ automation is implemented, using features such as smart data. Applied to vision inspection systems, defects can be spotted and dealt with swiftly with minimal impact to a line. A smart vision inspection system can make any production line more efficient and less wasteful. This is both in terms of capacity and down time.

Quality control pertinence

All production lines can face challenges with inspection and quality control. However, it’s important to avoid mistakes at all costs in the food and beverage industries.

The negative effects of defect products reaching the public domain can be far reaching, with a product recall affecting everything from consumer health to brand confidence.

The listeriosis outbreak is an unfortunate example. The news of the foodborne disease was made public in March by the Minister of Health, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi. This followed the National Consumer Commission’s (NCC) order to recall processed meat products manufactured by Enterprise, a division of Tiger Brands, and Rainbow, a division of RCL Foods.

The Consumer Goods Council of South Africa (CGCSA) confirms that retailer and manufacturer members already adhere to the strictest hygienic and food safety standards, regularly monitored by the Department of Health.

‘Our concern is always the health of consumers and our members will not compromise on this non-negotiable requirement. CGCSA members have ongoing routine testing schedules in place to monitor all food products for pathogens and take action if these organisms are detected. The members have, as a result of the latest outbreak, taken additional precautionary measures to ensure the safety of food products sold to consumers.

Omron’s systems cover all parts of the production line, including quality inspection. Whether providing a complete system solution or a partial upgrade to an existing system, each component is geared towards ensuring the highest quality control.

For inspection and quality control, the compact visual inspection units monitor production in real time and respond instantly to any defect. Data sent from the vision system is processed locally and sent via the cloud for powerful analysis, allowing the system to take appropriate actions. It is totally interlinked, with the improved connection between machines on a production line delivering more accurate quality control and higher efficiency. If any error is detected, the system can often compensate automatically, allowing production to continue unaffected.

A close up of the microscan technology

Omron’s smart automation solutions are fast, easy to use and possess loads of processing power. This combination of benefits delivers effective inspection and transparent quality control.

The smart choice

In order for an inspection system to be equipped to make smart decisions, it needs to collect data from a sensor such as a vision camera. Vision cameras can be set up to monitor different aspects of products. It can check for imperfections and detect labels with misprints or missing information. Through powerful processing, the data is analysed to monitor the process, comparing actual with expected results. If problems are found, the system follows programmed rules on how to respond to changes. It is even able to deal with the matter automatically.

In every case an operator is informed for correct process management and in the event additional action is required. The more data there is, the more processing is performed which means the machine is smarter and able to keep manufacturing lines running longer, with less downtime and higher productivity. All data is logged by the system and stored in a cloud. This helps with regulatory compliance as operations can later be reviewed for auditing purposes.

Resilience in all forms

Flexibility is an added advantage of an effective inspection and process management system. This is aside from being able to seize production errors and reduce waste.

By combining vision, motion, control, safety, and robotics in a single management system, such as Omron’s Sysmac Studio, production lines can readily accommodate short production runs and adapt to market demands.

Line setups can be changed quickly for new production runs. The recognition pattern for quality inspection can be updated easily in the software. This ensures different variants or that different products are produced and packaged correctly.

These systems are future-proofed because they easily adapt to accommodate any changes to regulations. Manufacturers need not worry about subsequent updates on their production lines in order to meet future regulations. All that is required is the rollout of a new firmware update for the existing solution.

Mandatory information required on food labels

Gabi Steenkamp, a registered dietician, highlights what’s needed on food and beverage labels:

• an accurate name of the product informing the consumer of exactly what is in the packaging

• ingredients listed in descending order of mass

• allergens identified in the prescribed format

• the country of origin

• a batch identification number

• use by date or best before date

• The Typical Nutritional Information Table for all products in the prescribed format, products without claims may use calculated nutritional analysis values

• a name and address in South Africa of the manufacturer, importer or distributor

• net contents in metric units.

Agricultural products must also comply with the relevant agricultural standards act for that specific food.

Omron – www.omronindustrial.co.za