Let's discuss foreign materials (FM) as related to frozen potato products including strips, other cuts, formed product, etc. FM is defined as anything that is not potato. You know the list: vines, weeds, wood, plastic bottles, aluminum cans, golf balls, bone, small animals, gloves, ear plugs, nuts and bolts, conveyor belting, rocks, broken glass. We even see hand grenades coming from the fields of western Europe!
We know that FM is unacceptable to any consumer. Just from a quality perspective: they are buying potato (and inadvertently the packaging it comes in), nothing else. If some percentage of the weight of product that they purchased is not potato, they feel cheated at best. And of course it can get much, much worse. If the FM is perceived to be hazardous to health, you know the consequences: often legal action is taken by the consumer, your brand gets into the media in a strongly negative sense, you recall product where appropriate (at huge cost), etc., etc. FM is extremely expensive to have in your product and it potentially harms consumers, and so your tolerance for it must be zero.
We use various mechanical means to remove what we can: washers, rock traps, scalpers and fines graders get out quite a bit of this junk. But much still remains.
Historically, we have applied humans to the problem, placing manual inspectors/trimmers in raw receiving just upstream of peeling, and in packaging just upstream of distribution to the scales. Problem is, we are finding out that humans are far from perfect (surprised?), and we put them in an environment where vigilant attention is challenging to achieve. We try to motivate them to find ALL the FM, but that is not practical... and we all know that, if we will admit to it!
The answer, of course, is in automation: inspecting the product stream with sensors that are consistently vigilant, that have zero tolerance for FM, and the performance to back that up.
Next time, we will discuss some of the sensors available, their benefits and drawbacks. After that, we will look at application: where do you apply the sensors in your line?
Until next time-
Tim
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Ban Foreign Materials!
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
No More Pickers!
The last of the remaining manual (read: people) applications for quality control in potatoes are going the way of the Edsel.
In both frozen potato products and chip/crisps segments, people are still commonly used as a last defense to control quality, most notably to remove foreign materials. These workers sit on stools over conveyors, scanning the product flow just before packaging, looking for anything out the ordinary. Of course, since foreign objects actually are found very rarely, these employees pick out some defects (and not uncommonly, some good product as well) in an effort to look busy and useful. When a supervisor or manager walks by their area, watch their hands speed up to remove more product! And once the supervisor/manager leaves... their eyes slow down and become glazed... their hands move ever more slowly... and frequent glances as the clock increase, so they will know just when that next break occurs.
Not a job that I would envy!
Often the product is flowing multiple layers deep at that point. Even if the worker stirs the pile a bit with their hands, they are able to scan only a small part of the overall flow. And the foreign materials that often settle to the bottom of the stack? They usually pass unseen.
Most chips/crisps today use optical sorters to remove color defects in this same area of the plant: scorched areas, excessive peel, bruise, green/sunburn, etc. But still the worker remains downstream.... why?
To at least attempt to keep foreign materials out.
Much of what we do in most areas of life, at any one point of time, is an artifact of what has become standard practice in the past. If we really considered what is possible, change could come, often at relatively low cost in time and money.
"Color" sorters were historically "black and white" (or, grayscale) devices for potato products: They simply looked for areas that were darker than the chip and puffed them out. Modern true color sorters are much more capable, able to highlight green areas and those of other colors to detect more subtle variations than the old monochromatic systems could. And they can categorize non-product colors uniquely, performing different ejection functions based on the specific category identified.
Bottom line: color cameras can now remove foreign materials in ways monochromatic systems could not. They have long been able to distinguish between belt (background), good product, various known defect colors. Now color sorters can categorize "all other" colors, the colors of foreign materials. And get them out, all where color can be distinguished.
Plus, laser technology can distinguish most objects that are the same color as good product or belt/background, but having different translucence than the good product. With the combination of cameras and lasers, most all foreign materials can be removed. At a radically high rate.
Quality control labor is nearing an end.
More on frozen potato products and whole potato applications next time.
Tim
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Labor Issues, Part Deux
Further to last week's blog:
So where can we look to reduce labor costs in today's processing plants? Where are we spending the most money on labor today?
I suppose "today's processing plants" begs a bit of clarification: many of the processing plants I have seen appear to have been designed some time age, using old technology. What with the industry slowdown of the early 2000s, there are not many new processing plants built over the last 5 years. And many of the recent refurbishments of existing lines didn't move them very far toward "modern" in practical terms. So let's not pretend that the industry is generally operating as efficiently as possible today. It takes time to assimilate the changes that technology makes possible.
Of course, I'm not referring to YOUR plant ;-)
I will mention one area today: Sanitation. I see many plants that are very nearly run without people on the floor. People are not inspecting product, people are not running machines. But they are cleaning up. Walking about with hoses and rain suits, spraying down everything that moves and much more.
What could we save with equipment that is self-cleaning? That knows when to start its own wash process, and completes it without intervention? That minimizes not only labor but also cleaning solutions and their disposal costs.
The need to reduce labor costs will drive us toward some fundamental changes in equipment, I think. It will drive us to look for surface materials that resist contamination, to designs that are simpler, smoother and with less cracks and crevices that can trap gunk.
More comprehensive design changes are going to emerge, no doubt!
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Labor Issues
I saw this article yesterday:
http://www.foodproductiondaily.com/news/ng.asp?n=84326&m=1FPD331&c=lstiumfsmhppdsh
It really should come as no surprise: our culture and economy have diverging demands on our business. When we employ people to do jobs, we take on an increasing burden of responsibility- responsibility to pay them fairly, to treat them with respect and equality. The challenge is that the definition of what those things mean changes over time, generally at increased cost without increased real value. Eventually, the overall true cost of labor becomes sufficiently high to drive investments to reduce it.
We all tend to get stuck in the status quo. Change takes energy, costs money, involves risk. What new methods and approaches should we consider to reduce labor costs? What results (other than labor reduction) will we need to address for each? By reducing labor costs, will we actually improve profitability?
Automation seems to be the general approach to labor cost reduction. But which area will give us better payback? Where are we spending the most on labor today? In what areas does existing technology currently present opportunities for cost reduction? What will future technologies bring us?
Until next time- post a comment! We will continue this thought....
Tim