QUALITY CONTROL: ADVANCEMENTS
Vision inspection is integral in quality control, so it is important that those engineers with the responsibility of quality keep up to date with the latest developments
A new vision of food quality David Hannaby reviews the progress and range of automated quality inspection functions available to the FMCG engineer
Inspection technology has been making an increasing contribution to quality control in food processing and packaging over the last few years, becoming a vital tool for quality assurance. Reduction of waste and rejects, with associated improvements in yield and product quality, are also important.
David Hannaby is product manager of vision & measurement at SICK (UK), producers of sensors and sensor solutions. For more information, visit
www.sick.co.uk.
D
evelopments in vision camera system performance have
opened up new quality information potential for the production engineer. An informed insight into the progress of the technology
26 | FMCG News |
FMCGNews.co.uk
enables the engineer to select the most appropriate mix of systems to meet a wider range of quality needs. While the outlook is exciting,
the potential for enhanced 3D is only starting to be exploited in the factory environment. Additionally, integration with other types of product identification information used to trace it from source through processing to the shelf is another growth area. Perhaps the most important
contribution to better quality control is the 24/7 consistency of on-line vision systems which, unlike personnel, do not tire or suffer from attention dips over time.
AN INNOVATION MILESTONE - 2D The use of 2D vision technology has been established for around a decade. It is widely used to provide simple inspection, dimensional and positional data for foodstuff items or packs. For example, where a
packaging pick and place robot is deployed on a moving conveyor line, a vision system can be used to locate the position of products being picked and check their orientation, or whether they are overlapped or piled up in any way. Communication of this to the software which controls the picking is critical, and must be very precise in
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