The Right Sort for Your Plant
Automated inspection devices (sorters) are a relatively new technology for many fresh cut plants. If you have a sorter in your plant, you understand how critical the sorter selection process is. If you don’t have a sorter in your plant yet, I suspect you have or will consider the benefit this technology can bring to you in the future. Working for a sorting designer/manufacturer, I’ve experienced the process of helping food processors to work thru this selection, and observed a few critical success factors.
Define your business drivers and current processes. Why are you considering technology or automation additions to your line? If you are investigating automated inspection for your fresh cut line, your primary goal could be to improve food safety & quality. Additional business reasons might be to reduce operating cost and increase yield. In any case, are you able to create a financial model for this investment that creates an acceptable return for you? The answer here depends on how well you understand the quality/cost equation of your current process. You’re going to try to define the benefit of improvement over your existing methods, so you will need to define what metrics are important to you. Often, metrics include quality records, customer complaints, yield per shift, and line labor cost.
Discuss your expectations with the technical experts, both those within your organization and within your vendor partner’s team. Clearly define and communicate your goals and expectations, down to the detailed level. A good vendor partner will work with you to understand your goals and expectations, and give you honest feedback on how well their sorter solution can fit your needs.
Nello Zuech, of Vision Systems International, presents a much more detailed look at risk reduction in making this selection:
http://www.machinevisiononline.org/public/articles/archivedetails.cfm?id=1820
Do you have a sorting selection story to share? Are there additional considerations you see that I haven’t mentioned here? Is there one most critical factor? Let's continue the discussion.
Friday, February 27, 2009
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