3 Ways to Elevate Food Safety and Quality Assurance with X-Ray

Author Christy Draus Head of Marketing

Are you ready to take the next step in quality control at your manufacturing plant? If you’re not quite sure where to start, x-ray inspection is a natural progression for businesses that want to raise the bar of their production up to a higher standard. Today we’ll be exploring 3 ways that you can elevate your brand’s food safety and quality assurance using x-ray inspection technology– and 4 ways to get started with x-ray inspection at your facility.

1.    Help with Regulatory Compliance

As regulatory bodies like the FDA continue to develop and update rulings on the Food Safety Modernization Act (or FSMA), it has never been more important for food producers and processors to remain flexible yet capable in their quality assurance methods. Rules are only becoming more strict on hazard analysis and verification, and yesterday’s food inspection tech simply won’t cut it for much longer. That’s why it’s important to stay ahead of the curve– and one way to do that is with Eagle’s advanced dual energy x-ray systems, enhanced with photon-counting technology.

If you want to dig deeper into the science of it, we have countless resources on x-ray inspection technology. However, the bottom line is that our Performance X-Ray Technology, or PXT™, can detect smaller contaminants than ever before possible. This tech allows food processors to quickly detect and reject contaminated products from their lines with unrivaled accuracy. When paired with our TraceServer™ software, our machines can generate traceable documentation for each and every product that passes through. With a digital record of all products that have passed and failed inspection, producers and processors can continuously verify their food safety and quality assurance methods, which is good for both regulatory compliance and maintaining trust from business partners and customers alike.

2.    Automated Contaminant Detection

How much time do your employees spend manually inspecting your product? At many facilities, manual inspection is the standard– but automation presents a better way to work.

X-ray inspection systems can help your food production lines run leaner than ever by saving hours of manual inspection time. Not only do our inspection systems have an incredibly high accuracy rate, but implementing an automated contaminant detection system can help reduce personnel, freeing up your people to spend time on more valuable tasks.

There’s not a food industry out there that can’t benefit from Eagle’s contaminant detection capabilities. Our systems can detect unwanted materials of all kinds, including:

• Bone fragments
• Glass
• Some Rubber and High-Density Plastics
• Stones
• Metal
• Rubber

So, whether you’re looking for razor thin bones in fish filets or plucking golf balls from bulk potatoes, an automated x-ray inspection system from Eagle can help you catch contaminants faster and move more product without interruption. And why stop at just one? Multilane inspection capabilities are available on our x-ray inspection machines, which allows Eagle customers to detect different types of contaminants on different products on the same line. With fully automated reject systems, there’s no better way to boost the efficiency of your inspection line for top-notch food safety and quality assurance.

Not sure where to automate? Discover the benefits of inserting x-ray inspection points at the packaging stage and the production stage. >>>>Read This Blog.

3.    Enhanced Traceability

If a question were to come up about a particular product on your production line, you want to be able to find data and images as soon as possible, to settle a concern or determine if a recall is needed. But how can this be done? The right pairing of advanced x-ray machinery and a software solution may be the answer to your food safety and quality assurance needs. By combining the latest detection technologies with software that allows you to record and store product information and visuals, you can ensure quality assurance and back it up to a centralized database.

As manufacturers face growing calls for traceability and product information among regulators, retail and foodservice customers and consumers themselves, having a strong track record for safety and quality now includes demonstrating it.

Getting Started with X-Ray Technology for Food Inspection

How can you gain better visibility of your products and processes with x-ray solutions? Here are four ways to get started.

1) Assess your current capabilities. What technologies do you have in place now that can inspect products and log or record that information? If you are relying on employees and paper, you likely have gaps in product detection and incomplete information due to human error.

2) Consider (or reconsider) the value of x-ray machines paired with powerful software. Think of it like a vault of valuables. You can rest easier knowing that not only have your products been inspected for hazardous contaminants and quality control checks, but also information on those products has been stored securely and is accessible if and when needed.

3) Review what’s new. At Eagle, we’re continually refining our technologies, including our advanced x-ray machines and software. One latest example is the Eagle Pack 720 PRO equipped with our TraceServer™ software, that collects data from several machines and stores it in a centralized database. A barcode input allows for dynamic “on the fly” product switching without sacrificing throughput or speed. Also boosting efficiency is the system’s ability to provide custom production reports that can identify inefficiencies in both production and employee operation.

4) Focus on processes, products and people. X-ray detection systems and software provide insights into product quality and safety which can improve process efficiencies, but they can also identify potential worker issues. On a broader level, having an open mindset to the benefits of sharing information and images is important for all employees, as greater visibility will be expected going forward in the industry.

By taking these steps to more effectively capture, store and access product data and images with advanced x-ray inspection systems and software, manufacturers can improve product quality and safety and also gain higher productivity and efficiency. After all, as anyone in the manufacturing business knows all too well, precision is pivotal. That’s true for many processes, and it’s increasingly true for the ways in which operators record those processes.

Want to learn more about what Eagle PI systems can do to elevate your food safety and quality assurance capabilities? >>>> Contact us today to discuss your inspection and detection needs.