The German dairy company Karwendel-Werke Huber is ensuring outstanding product quality for its Exquisa and miree cream cheese and quark specialties with the help of eleven X-ray in...
The German dairy company Karwendel-Werke Huber is ensuring outstanding product quality for its Exquisa and miree cream cheese and quark specialties with the help of eleven X-ray inspection systems from Ishida Europe. Two models from the Ishida X-ray range have been installed, the IX-GA-4075, which is inspecting plastic tubs with fill weights between 135g and 500g, and the IX-GA-65100, which is able to inspect crates packed with six and 12 individual packs "en bloc". As well as its soft cheese and quark specialties, the X-ray systems are inspecting plant-based products from Karwendel's subsidiary NOA, dealing in total with 15 different pack formats. Foreign body detection with metal detectors was not an option because of the metallized (aluminum) film lid and Karwendel also wanted to be able to detect non-metallic foreign bodies. This includes, for example, small stones in the herbs and spices formats and pieces of fruit cores that may accidentally end up in the soft cheese and quark formats. The requirements profile demanded the reliable detection of specific foreign body particle sizes (for example, 1 mm stainless steel, 2 mm glass and 4 mm PTFE plastic). "Thanks to their relatively homogeneous mass, our products can be detected relatively easily by X-ray inspection systems," reports Stefan Schindler, Head of Quality Management at Karwendel-Werke Huber. "However, high performance levels are required, as all of our production lines work at speeds of 172 cycles per lane (often using twin lanes) and per minute."