Page 78 - Food&Drink Magazine November-December 2021

SUPPLIER SPOTLIGHT
Knowing your TDC from your TCO
Managing successful packaged food production lines often requires manufacturers to be able to operate within tight financial margins. Neil Giles from Mettler-Toledo Product Inspection looks at the importance of TCO and TDC metrics.
daunting and increase overall TDC. Every good product which is rejected leads to avoidable re-testing and production line re-working costs.
For example, a snack manufacturer using an old X-ray machine, which executed a small set of inspection algorithms, reported that their system was generating at least four false rejects per hour, equating to roughly seven per 10,000 packs. In addition, a quality assurance employee spent valuable time investigating and documenting the results of each false reject event – adding more unnecessary costs to production over time.
Current advanced X-ray inspection software uses a larger number of algorithms, which individually check for product anomalies over a smaller range. This increases inspection accuracy and allows for natural package variations without increasing FRR and ultimately TDC.
REDUCING FREQUENT TESTING
To ensure the highest levels of food safety are maintained on production lines, food manufacturers need to carry out regular sensitivity checks for potential contaminant types, which can affect the availability of their production line and therefore, their productivity.
Typically, snack manufacturers often need to test the sensitivity levels on their production lines every two hours. This means stopping the line and testing equipment, which increases overall TDC.
Sensitivity is a critical factor for successful and accurate metal detection on production lines. In this case, sensitivity is the measure of a metal detector’s ability to identify the size and type of contaminant and whether it is ferrous, non-ferrous, or stainless steel.
The latest metal detection equipment incorporates Reduced Test (RT) Mode technology, which can reduce the frequency need of tests by as much as 80 per cent. The technology allows continuous
FOOD and beverage manufacturers are skilled at working with tight budgets and thin margins. A well-established metricintheindustryisTotalCost of Ownership (TCO), which takes into consideration the purchase price of a piece of equipment, as well as the operational costs it incurs over time.
TCO is often used in procurement analysis when preparing business cases to secure additional capital expenditure to update food production lines, as TCO focuses on all costs directly related to the piece of equipment itself.
However, packaged food manufacturers are increasingly considering another metric to measure the overall productivity and effectiveness of their production lines: Total Delivered Cost (TDC).
THE TDC AND TCO DIFFERENCE
TDC looks at the total cost of manufacturing and delivering a product. This includes the sum of TCO (all costs directly related to the piece of equipment) and all operational costs, such as the physical product, packaging, labour for production and quality checks, waste product, waste packaging and transport.
RT:
DROP IN THE FREQUENCY NEEDED FOR TESTING.
Because TDC takes into account operational costs, the metric can easily be affected by common issues on production lines, such as product rejects, having to change product set-ups manually, contaminants and downtime for maintenance purposes.
So, while it is a more comprehensive metric, TDC needs production lines to be running at capacity and smoothly.
Two main types of product inspection technology – X-ray inspection and metal detection – can help manufacturers reduce TDC.
MINIMISING FALSE REJECT RATES
In food production, the cost implications of high False Reject Rates (FRR) can be
78 | Food&Drink business | November - December 2021 | www.foodanddrinkbusiness.com.au
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