Bizerba (Germany) - Bizerba‘s visual inspection system SliceCheck enables visual 100-percent inspections of sliced products before packaging. The real-time check detects mechanical damages and visual flaws including torn edges, holes or false orientation and rejects faulty products in time, thus saving material and cost.

Following the slicing process, SliceCheck’s visual inspection technology checks the top slice of each product stack for criteria like shape, size, position and composition. Faults including folds, cracks and imperfections result in the product’s ejection from the process before entering the packaging stage. Depending on the product, the inspection system checks and measures the product’s appearance with respect to fat content, bloodstains and marbling. For instance, the system checks cooked ham for the position and thickness of the crust. Raw ham, in turn, is checked for slices penetrated by fat or parts of the knuckle. In addition, SliceCheck detects spots that are penetrated by dark veins and do not meet the quality requirements. Thus, product quality can be ensured before the packaging process.

Continuous monitoring and adjusting of parameters while slicing and shaping ham helps to improve equipment productivity. By providing detailed information including the appearance, fat content and completeness of each product stack, the system creates a database that can be used to analyze and optimize the upstream slicing process. End-to-end traceability is also enabled by archiving images and production data.

SliceCheck also detects the height and orientation of the entire product stack, thus enabling precise placement in the package. This avoids flaws like inclusions of material in the sealed seam or leaky spots. Contactless quality checks also improve the hygiene conditions of the entire operation by reducing the risk of contamination due to human intervention.

Checking up to 100 stacks per minute per lane, the system can be straightforwardly connected to existing monitoring software or the company’s internal ERP system. Synchronous checking on two parallel lanes or asynchronous checking on multiple lanes is equally possible.

Apart from sliced products, SliceCheck can also be used for pastry including cookies or donuts.

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