Product category:
Metal detection and X-ray systems
News Release from: Smiths Detection | Subject: Johnsonville Sausage
Edited by the Processingtalk Editorial
Team on 27 April 2007
Quality product inspection at
Johnsonville Sausage
Smiths Detection is the supplier of choice for x-ray inspection technology at Johnsonville Sausage, after side by side comparison trials against two competitor's units
Johnsonville Sausage, North America's largest fresh sausage manufacturer initiated a company wide x-ray project in 2003 After extensive trials with x-ray machines from 3 different vendors, the decision resulted in Smiths Detection becoming the supplier of choice for x-ray inspection technology for Johnsonville Sausage
This article was originally published on Processingtalk on 12 May 2005 at 8.00am (UK)
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Johnsonville Sausage Project Engineer, Erik Larson, reports that: "We are constantly amazed by the consistency and reliability in the Smiths Detection product line to detect and reject small contaminates.
The equipment purchases continually pay for themselves as our contaminant complaints have been significantly reduced with the Smiths x-ray equipment".
Johnsonville started the x-ray project with a 6 month trial using a product inspection machine from a competitive supplier.
This test process resulted in higher than normal reject rates in the first x-ray scan - when rejected products were x-rayed for a second time the results determined that only 1/3 of the initial rejects were true rejects (contained a contaminant).
The Johnsonville greatest concern with the other x-ray company's machine was the large number of false rejects which meant slower production time and profit loss.
In the final stages of the trial, Johnsonville brought in the Smiths Detection Eagle Pack x-ray system for a "side-by-side" comparison with two other direct competitors machines.
The Eagle Pack x-ray machine is large enough to inspect two lanes of product running side by side through the machine.
One lane runs the primary product and the second lane is used as a rework lane for rejected items.
Once the product is sent back through the rework lane, the Simul-Task 3.0 Image Analysis Software holds a picture of the scanned product so that the product can be retrieved from the reject bin, the contaminated piece can be removed and replaced without affecting production.
Smiths Detection offers technologically advanced security solutions employing trace detection technology and X-ray imaging, principally for civil and military markets worldwide.
Smiths Detection Product Inspection focuses on the food processing and packaging industry, deploying X-ray technology to detect and reject harmful physical contaminants and other defects in packaged products, to check product content and confirm product integrity.
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