Process Control and Automation What challenges are there currently?
Stefania says: “The biggest challenge is effectively involving all departments as a way to get a complete vision of the customer’s process. Many departments tend to be considered irrelevant to the planning of the dosing system, but CEPI’s experience in managing this process makes it very easy for us to guide the manufacturer through a much wider analysis and in selecting all critical information.
“Our systems are based on long term thinking in order to
create the most flexible solution for each food manufacturer and not preclude any new path they may take in the future. What we recommend and what we always prioritise is not changing the working habits of each customer, but rather optimise and automatise what they are already doing.” Rob says: “Control of costs is always a priority for manufacturers and automated technology can play a leading role in helping them to do so, usually by making them more efficient through eliminating time-consuming tasks. “There are numerous further benefits that are highly relevant within the product inspection field. Reducing False Reject Rates is one example. A metal detection system can learn the characteristics of the product it is inspecting and adjust for ‘product effect’ variations (this is where certain product properties such as salt or moisture content can mimic metal contamination, causing the metal detector to falsely reject a product), so that only those with genuine metal contaminants are rejected. As well as greater efficiency, this also delivers a reduced cost in terms of wasted products,” he explains.
Product inspection improving the process
It is about best use of resources. If automation can be used to take care of time-consuming, repetitive or manual processes, then the human or other resources that would have to be dedicated to those processes can be redeployed elsewhere to add greater value to the business. Rob goes on: “An example is the ATS (Automatic Test System)
included with Mettler-Toledo Safeline metal
detection systems. Rather than relying on operators to initiate and perform routine, regular testing, ATS ensures testing happens when it needs to (for example, for compliance reasons); it optimises the testing process and makes it faster (up to four different metal tests can be completed in less than 60 seconds). “By definition, that is the purpose of product inspection. With greater automation along the entire line, including product inspection, manufacturers can be more productive, with no loss of quality. Specific to ATS, it can also be seen that the automation of testing will result in ongoing optimisation of the system’s detection performance, which also ensures quality and compliance standards remain high,” he says.
Where do you see this market in the future?
Stefania says: “We see an increasing push towards vertical integration of production data beyond those regarding materials, like data on energy consumptions or compressed air, or anything that is useful to establish the exact value of a product.
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