Packaging

Bizerba supports consumer protection

Friday 22. April 2011 - New inspection systems at Interpack 2011 (hall 14, booth C14)

Glass shards in salads or pieces of metal in yoghurts: Technical errors in the production process are often the cause of product recalls. Companies then not only have to deal with the damage to their image, but also with significant compensation claims from customers which, in a worst-case scenario, can ruin a company. These disasters can be avoided through better, preventative contaminant detection procedures. In the words of British food safety expert Chris Griffith: “If ensuring the safety of your foodstuffs is too expensive for you, try attempting to deal with an incident.”
At Interpack 2011, Bizerba is presenting new inspection systems for manual and fully-automated production lines which use the latest X-ray and camera technology. Using these systems, foodstuff manufacturers can significantly increase their product safety and also satisfy the requirements of the HACCP guidelines and the International Food Standards (IFS) at the same time. The inspection systems have a WS-FOOD interface, the new standard for operating data logging and can be connected as plug-and-play devices and can then communicate with the company’s computer system.
The Bizerba Vision System: Even identifies fat and muscle mass proportions
With the Bizerba Vision System (BVS-G), manufacturers can not only check whether labels, barcodes and allergy information are correctly positioned in a fully-automated fashion, they can also classify foodstuffs into different quality levels at the same time. “The patented BVS-G system checks whether the right amount of a certain product is contained in the packaging and whether the products are in the correct position,” says Dieter Conzelmann, Director of Industry Solutions at Bizerba. “It is also the only system of its kind which identifies the relative proportions of fat and muscle mass. In the USA, the system has already been successfully integrated into large companies in the meat industry. Now we are turning to Europe.”
The XRE X-ray scanner also identifies glass or rubber with a throughput of 400 packages per minute.
Using the Bizerba XRE X-ray scanner, all contaminants can be identified that absorb the X-rays differently to the surrounding product ? even if the product is in aluminium packaging. The contaminant material, be it glass, bone, ceramics, stone, PVC or rubber, is not an issue here. Of course, the foodstuff remains completely unaffected. The XRE achieves a throughput of up to 400 packages per minute. At the same time, the system identifies product defects such as rips, trapped air or clumps of flavourings and can carry out completeness checks.
The image is assessed using visualisation software which can be calibrated to a new product extremely quickly using the Auto Training function. The simultaneous inspection of parallel product lines with overlapping products is also possible. “The XRE has an integrated industrial PC with touch-screen technology and the QNX real-time operating system,” says Conzelmann. “There aren’t any vulnerable hard disks or other drives. Typical problems such as system errors or driver conflicts are therefore a thing of the past.” Complete data backup including all images can be stored and transferred to the customer’s computer system. This supports manufacturers in terms of product liability.
The inspection systems can be set up as stand-alone units for small foodstuff manufacturers or can be fully-integrated into automated production lines. They can also be optimally combined with other Bizerba products, such as the CWE check-weigher series or the light-barrier and rejection systems. They also comply with the “Hygienic Design” foodstuff guidelines. The systems can be seen from 12th to 18th May at Interpack 2011 in Düsseldorf (hall 14, stand C14).