Cover Story Impressive sorting capabilities
TOMRA’s sorting technologies can inspect materials flowing down a confectionery production line according to their colour, shape, and product characteristics. Four sorters are particularly well-suited to confectionery applications: the Genius and its successor, the TOMRA 5B, both belt machines, and the Blizzard and Nimbus free-fall machines. Belt machines are generally most suitable for distinguishing the shapes of objects on the line and for hard candies that might be too fragile to land from a free-fall. Free-fall machines, which scan and separate objects in flight, are better suited to looking for discolourations. Both types of machines can be located on the line before or after the product is oiled, depending on the factory layout. Even though oiling can make the product sticky and sorting trickier, TOMRA’s machines nevertheless perform with unrivalled effectiveness. The machine best suited to smaller confectionery production facilities, because of its entry-level price and small footprint, is the Blizzard. This free-fall sorter does its detection work with pulsed LEDs and a combination of cameras, with a lighting system that needs very little calibration or maintenance. The LED’s different wavelengths detect foreign material, misshapen product, and discoloured product.
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The Genius belt sorter also employs high-resolution cameras but combines these with advanced laser technologies. The Genius’ successor, the TOMRA 5B, employs on-belt 360-degree-surround cameras, a laser, and off-belt cameras. Capable of distinguishing the colour, structure, and shape of objects on the line, these belt machines detect cross-contamination, starch, and foreign materials, as well as identifying clumping and misshapen products. These machines are particularly well-suited to the North American market, where confectionery factories tend to focus on a single product and require foreign object detection to be supplemented by challenging shape analysis. The Nimbus free-fall machine stands out for its capability to sort different products - such as sugar-free, with-sugar, and multivitamin sweets - with a variety of programs and applications on the same platform. This machine inspects product with specific laser technologies and combinations, and sorts according to colour, surface structure, and outline, with the ability to detect starch, foreign materials, and cross contamination. The Nimbus is in demand in European markets, where factories produce a variety of confectioneries and need to guarantee their customers a product free of cross-contamination.
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