Optical Oversight: Vision Inspection Drives Process Control

This article originally appeared in Food & Drink Manufacturing UK. Click here to access the full edition.

Food production is a very complex process, and there are a lot of factors that influence the final product. Temperature, raw materials, operating environment, and the operators themselves, are all variables in this process. Traditional processes require human operators to make these production adjustments, but without objective data, it becomes a slow process and relies on the knowledge and experience of the operator. It is an overall subjective way to inspect products and becoming more difficult to manage in today’s production facilities.

More food producers are turning to vision inspection systems to provide real-time feedback to process equipment based on measured color, size, shape, thickness, and other product characteristics. This significantly improves product quality and reduces waste.

Example 1: Monitoring Changes in Dough Shape of Baked Goods

Some doughs may retract in shape between forming and entering the oven. For instance, flour tortillas are typically pressed in large batches before proceeding through the baking process. Tortillas shaped earlier than others may be of a different size heading into the baking process than tortillas shaped later.

Installing vision inspection checkpoints gradually after the shaper and before the oven helps operators detect these size variations and recirculate the dough before it enters the baking process.

Example 2: Ingredient / Topping Application

Many food products have ingredients or toppings applied at different stages of processing. For instance, frozen pizzas undergo several stages of topping application depending on the pizza type. Automated machines apply these toppings or embellishments in tight constraints and require high repeatability but do run out of alignment periodically.

One frozen pizza producer uses a vision inspection system directly after ingredient applicators to help operators keep tabs on these machines. If the vision inspection system detects certain ingredients clumped in a particular area – or missing from the product altogether – it could be time for the operator to act.

Example 3: Defects in Ingredients or Cooking Processes

In a breaded chicken patty factory, vision inspection offers a useful application to assess the color, texture, and consistency of products leaving the fryer. If the chicken patty appears to be too dark or too light of color or has a section of the breading missing from its surface, vision inspection can make this determination much quicker and more consistent than a human operator inspecting the cooling line.

With this vision inspection data, processors can make determinations as to whether there is an issue with the breading quality or perhaps the cooking oil in the fryer may need to be replaced. This helps processors curb costs, reduce waste, and hold their suppliers accountable on their quality standards.

The vision inspection for process control concept is growing in popularity, especially within baking and protein processing. It offers an objective method to help producers make better-informed decisions to produce quality and consistent food products. As production processes become more mechanized, vision inspection provides a solution to detect the critical nuances in production performance that often go unnoticed by human inspectors. 

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