Four Ways to Increase Efficiencies While Protecting Your Brand

Maximizing efficiency on the line is a top goal for today’s manufacturers, who face concurrent challenges based on their operating environment and producing a safe and compliant product. Advanced x-ray systems can be deployed to find and remove contaminants that pose safety hazards and determine product flaws, but can also be used to improve efficiencies, from time, money, energy and labor standpoints.

Heading into a new year and decade, virtually every manufacturer is facing the same challenges: protecting their products and brands, working towards higher production goals, striving to prevent recalls, bolstering traceability and contending with a tough labor market. Although there may be simultaneous challenges, manufacturers can take advantage of equipment that performs multiple functions and offer a variety of benefits, including ensuring food safety and improving efficiencies.

Advanced inspection systems, for example, have a primary function of detecting physical contaminants that can cause food safety problems, from injuries to recalls. X-ray systems help ensure product safety and compliance by performing important quality checks, all while improving inline efficiencies.

Here are four ways you can use x-ray machines to improve efficiencies:

Time efficiency
Look for features like quick product setup and changeover to minimize downtime on your line, allowing you to keep up with high line speeds and hit production goals. Advanced x-ray systems, with the latest-generation software, also perform simultaneous quality checks, automatically and quickly checking things like fill level, mass measurement or the component count. Other time-saving features are available for today’s manufacturers, such as the Product Switch™ function that allows items with different inspection requirements to run on the same line.

Cost efficiency
Time is money, of course, so a system that saves time also saves manufacturers money. In addition, x-ray machines are more cost-effective than other types of detection tools that are less versatile and multifunctional, helping improve Overall Equipment Effectiveness. Advanced inspection systems offer a lower total cost of ownership with innovative designs, powerful software and rugged construction.

Energy efficiency
At a time when those in the food and beverage industries are keeping a closer eye on energy efficiency, they are looking for equipment that enables them to rein in energy use and energy costs. One example is the new Eagle EPX100-S for packaged products, an extension of the original EPX100 low-energy, high-value detection, greener system that also offers a smaller floor footprint. Other Eagle systems are designed with energy-efficient features as well, like the Eagle Pack 400 HC with an energy-efficient water-cooled heat exchanger that eliminates the need for a separate air conditioning unit to cool the system.

Labor efficiency
It’s increasingly challenging to find and retain employees, leading to the need for equipment that saves labor or frees up employees to do other critical work. One way to do that is to take advantage of systems like advanced inspection machines that are easy to operate, with software that provides easy-to-read onscreen diagnostics and on-demand or routine calibration, like Eagle’s VALIDATE™ and AUTOCAL™ features, with the push of a button. Also, by using advanced inspection systems, operators can virtually eliminate false rejects that require manual rework.