Page 58 - Food & Drink Magazine Sep-Oct 2020

TRENDS & TECHNOLOGY
New technology can increase accuracy and efficiency in a production line and help decrease instances of product recalls and withdrawals.
How automation can minimise food product recalls
Food product recalls are on the rise in Australia. According to Food Standards Australia New Zealand – which co- ordinates and monitors food recalls in Australia – there are five official food recalls per month on average, not including voluntary product withdrawals. More than one-third of all food recalls are because of non-compliant labelling issues.
Meanwhile, current production trends include shorter runs of multiple variants, reformulated versions of established products and redesigned packaging. These factors have an impact on labelling. Inadequate attention to labelling has led to many mistakes being made and product recalls.
Food recalls can destroy a new product and cause long-term damage to brand reputation and sales.
Effective and integrated plant automation can play a lead role in minimising costly and damaging recalls.
NO SILVER BULLET
While there is no single silver bullet to eliminate all threats, there are many production-level checks that can be integrated into control and information systems. Taken together, they can dramatically – and reliably – reduce the risk of recalls.
Vision systems for verifying packaging, product and codes, temperature control, sensors and robot controls can all sit on a single machine control platform with direct two-way, real-time connectivity with factory or enterprise-level databases.
The installed price of vision systems may have prompted potential beneficiaries to
treat this technology with caution. But that perception is changing, with end users and machine builders increasingly choosing to fit vision systems on their lines. Furthermore, regulations are increasing, demanding the capabilities that vision systems provide.
Vision can verify codes, graphics (reconciling each pack with the product on the line), pack components, label presence, print legibility, shape, colour and optical character recognition.
Database connectivity means that quality inspection and production data can be gathered, and traceability and regulatory compliance
can be ensured. It allows data to be analysed for adverse trends and to trigger predictive or preventative maintenance.
ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY
TO MINIMISE RISK
The individual machine controller can offer this level of connectivity while bringing under one umbrella logic, motion, vision, safety, and robotics.
Through advanced technology, the food processing industry can minimise product recalls, increase productivity and improve workplace safety.
Omron, a global leader in automation technology, offers a range of automation solutions designed
to improved productivity in the food processing industry – and avoid costly recalls.
Omron’s latest technology addresses major issues such as quality control, improved efficiency and productivity, worker safety, traceability and operating simplicity.
Omron recently has released its latest FH
Series Vision System with the industry’s first defect detection AI technology that identifies subtle defects with what the company says is “human-like sensitivity”.
For many industry sectors, particularly food and beverage, it is vital to reliably identify subtle defects even on flexible lines producing a wide range of items.
“Food recalls can destroy a new product and cause long-term damage to brand reputation.”
The new AI technology reproduces the techniques of skilled inspectors to reliably detect defects that were once difficult to capture, automating human vision-based visual inspection.
An AI fine-matching tool learns from the image data of non-defective products to quickly acquire the expertise that inspectors develop over the course of many years. This can reduce costs and boosts productivity through automation.
The full version of this article can be found on the PKN website, www.packagingnews.com.au.
6 SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2020 MACHINERY MATTERS