As a food processor or manufacturer, you know the importance of product quality control. Mistakes in the manufacturing process, like leaving foreign objects inside the products, could result in injuries to consumers or recalls.
X-ray scanning technology can help prevent these errors. The primary advantage of x-ray inspection for food packaging is that it can catch these contaminants before the products make it out the door. But what products are better suited to be inspected by an x-ray machine?
Many different kinds of products work well with inspections from an x-ray machine, such as products in the food and beverage, pharmaceutical, chemical, and automotive industries.
Detecting foreign objects with x-ray machines can provide significant benefits for your business. Learn more about when you may want to deploy x-ray machines for your processing facility.
Characteristics of Products Suitable for X-Ray Inspection
Many times, an inspection system will involve x-ray vs. metal detection and require choosing the right type of inspection for your facility’s needs. Certain characteristics of products lend themselves to one over the other.
Products Better for X-Ray Inspection
If your facilities create products that involve frozen or salty, moisture-rich foods, you may encounter errors when using metal detection. Such items work well with x-ray inspection.
You may have trouble detecting products with low density for x-ray inspection. X-ray machines typically cannot detect low-density plastics, for example.
However, a high-density material works nicely with x-ray inspection. As the x-rays pass through the material, they lose energy. This shows the variations in the density of the material, which is ideal for detecting contaminants or inconsistencies in the product.
Products Better for Metal Detection
If you have products that may end up with small particles of metal contaminants, metal detection will find these items successfully.
Some facilities may use metal detection on products that need to have metal in them. For example, in a box that contains all the ingredients for baking muffins or cinnamon rolls, you may want to be certain a metal can with frosting or processed blueberries is inside the package. The metal detector ensures the can is present.
Best Products for X-Ray Inspection
When determining whether x-ray inspection will work at your manufacturing business, you need to be confident that it works with the products you use. Understanding which products and materials x-ray inspection systems can detect successfully is a good place to start.
Food Products
Commonly, x-ray inspection applications in manufacturing food and beverages have a high level of success. The x-ray system finds foreign objects and other contaminants in these items. You can perform package integrity inspection with x-ray technology, too.
When your food products are extremely dense or compact, x-ray is a good choice. The way the x-rays lose energy as they move through the dense items helps the system gain an accurate picture of any potential foreign objects inside the items.
X-ray inspection also works on the food after it’s inside the packaging, including foil packages.
Pharmaceutical Products
When wondering what products are better suited to be inspected by an x-ray machine, medications, and other pharmaceutical products are on the list.
Whether you frequently use a format involving encapsulated pills and tablets or injectable drugs in vials, x-ray inspections work nicely. You can do the inspections safely because of the low level of x-rays involved.
Electronics
In the electronics industry, precise manufacturing tolerances are vital to creating parts that work properly. X-ray inspections easily handle integrated circuits, electronic components, and assembled electronic devices. With the inspection machine in place, the manufacturers can track their products across the entire production line, finding the location of any quality issues.
Chemicals and Hazardous Materials
Chemical and hazardous material manufacturing facilities can use x-ray inspections to ensure the purity of their products. The x-ray machines can find foreign objects or contaminants in the chemicals that could affect their ability to perform the job your customers need them to do.
Automotive Parts
Automotive parts manufacturers use x-ray inspections to ensure the parts have precise dimensions. The x-ray machine can determine whether any cracks or improper welds are present in the parts. Sometimes, such flaws in the parts are not easy to see with a manual inspection, making the x-ray inspection a vital option.
Factors Influencing Suitability for X-Ray Inspection
What products are better suited to be inspected by an x-ray machine? The factors that influence whether you should use an x-ray machine for certain products include:
- Regulatory requirements, where you need a safe means of inspecting products for foreign objects that fit within regulations for your industry.
- Speed of the production line, as products that require extremely fast movement in the manufacturing process may experience issues with accuracy in x-ray inspection.
- Cost factors, where x-ray inspection equipment can deliver cost savings over the long run versus other options.
- Sensitivity of the detection, where product packaging that’s too close to the x-ray beams could affect the machine’s sensitivity, leaving it unable to detect foreign objects.
- Product characteristics, where meat that may have bones inside could set off a foreign object detection, while cereals rarely cause problems with false readings with x-ray inspection.
Understanding the factors that are most important for your facility’s needs plays a key role in selecting the right model.
Best Practices for Selecting Products for X-Ray Inspection
When you are looking at optimizing x-ray inspection for your most common products, you need to follow certain best practices for how to choose a food x-ray inspection machine. The customer service team at TDI Packsys can help you make the right selection based on your particular needs.
- Conducting product trials to determine accuracy levels
- Assessing the feasibility of operating the x-ray machine at your facility
- Ensuring the machine can meet your quality assurance requirements
- Having the ability to perform regular maintenance and calibration
- Setting up a plan for making continuous improvements and optimizations to the system
- Determining whether you need ease of use as a key feature in the machine
You should analyze your needs for food inspection before trying to select the x-ray inspection machine that will fit those needs.
Industries That Commonly Use X-Ray Inspection
Why do certain companies make use of x-rays for inspections in the food industry? X-ray inspection machines offer benefits for food safety, product quality, weight accuracy, and cost savings versus manual inspections.
What products are better suited to be inspected by an x-ray machine? Some of the industries that frequently make use of x-ray inspections include:
- Food and beverage processing and manufacturing
- Pharmaceutical
- Automotive
- Electronics
- Aerospace
How To Match Your Common Products to the Right X-Ray Inspection Machine
At TDI Packsys, we have a range of x-ray inspection machines. As a leading provider of food packaging inspection solutions, we can deliver x-ray food inspection systems and machines that fit your needs perfectly.
When you want to learn more about x-ray food inspection processes, our team can explain everything in terms you can easily understand.
We can work with you to figure out what products are better suited to be inspected by an x-ray machine and which machine is ideal for your needs. Contact TDI Packsys today at 877-834-6750 to discuss our x-ray inspection product solutions.
