How to check leak in Intermediate Flexy Bag (big bag)

Dear all...

In my company, we using bigbag (intermidiate flexy bag) to packing our product.. sometimes we found the inner have a small leak, but we can't detect it...
today we try to find to detect the leak imediately
do any one have any experiences to detect the leak ?or any suggestion for procedure to detect it ?...FYI.. the leakage can't inspect by visually..



rgds

AS Nur

NOTE : bigbag have two layers inner (made from PE) and outer (made from PP)

Dear AS NUR,

Absolutely no experience with yr specific topic but for refrigeration machinery, a standard hand-held freon leak tester is used. Would require buying the two items of course but is quite sensitive from memory. I presume the well-known soap method of testing bicycle tyres is not convenient (or sensitive enough anyway), in addition to being destructive

Rgds / Charles.C

thanks charles for your post..

FYI.. Our product is powder form.. and we put in inner bag (made from PolyEthylene) and the bag covered (outer ) by PolyProphylene. sometimes we found the lumpy product between inner and outer after 3 -4 days storage time.. and we have to reject the product..
we want to know at the first time during production process (filling process), that bag is leak.. so we can save the product.. now we just swab the outer of bag to monitoring the leak.. but the procedure not effective enough to avoid the leak bag.. so may be someone have any suggestion for more effective procedure...

Quick search:

Detecting leaks in modified atmosphere packaging

Leak testing

The following is not concerning leakage but it might help in some way (for example the use of some sort of indicator in the package). Check it out:

Intelligent packaging

Cheers!

Supplier QA / Positive Release?

yes simon... and we do sampling process during incoming of bag... And three month ago we did supplier audit, and we summarize, they process can avoid any leak inner bag... and they do good manufacturin process... but sometimes we find the leak after storing in WH, that some lumpy product at the bag...

yes simon... and we do sampling process during incoming of bag... And three month ago we did supplier audit, and we summarize, they process can avoid any leak inner bag... and they do good manufacturin process... but sometimes we find the leak after storing in WH, that some lumpy product at the bag...

Depending on the cause of the leaks I can only think of three possible answers:

1. Get a stonger bag
2. Get a more reliable supplier
3. Improve your handling and storage methods


Simon

thanks simon for the post...

We did number 1 and 3.. and for no .2 we arenot do yet, because I think the leak not came from suppplier, that because of our handling during process and handling the material...and the indicator of leak is lumpy product after 3 -4 days at warehouse.. so I need the faster and easier monitoring of the leak before we put he product in the WH... Now we doing swab outter bag to check any leak in bag.. but i think this procedure not effective enough.. so I try to fing better procedure from the people...

Dear AS Nur,

Probably its way too late and you've already found the solution, but still.. Id like to ask somethin regarding your problems:

1. Why its happen now? Does the bag is a new material? or substitute material? What happen on the old days?
2. Where is the position of the leaks? If it coming from the seal, then I guess the seal is not good, or not proper enough to handle your kind of product. You should find another kind of bag. (Anyway, the PP has stronger resistance than PE, is it correct?)
3. If its happen during the storage, IMO its strongly caused by overweight. Or the product's pile/arrangement in pallete is not correct enough, perhaps.

Hope you find the solution soon.


Regards,


Arya

Dear AS Nur,

Probably its way too late and you've already found the solution, but still.. Id like to ask somethin regarding your problems:

1. Why its happen now? Does the bag is a new material? or substitute material? What happen on the old days?
2. Where is the position of the leaks? If it coming from the seal, then I guess the seal is not good, or not proper enough to handle your kind of product. You should find another kind of bag. (Anyway, the PP has stronger resistance than PE, is it correct?)
3. If its happen during the storage, IMO its strongly caused by overweight. Or the product's pile/arrangement in pallete is not correct enough, perhaps.

Hope you find the solution soon.


Regards,


Arya

DEar Arya...

1. I'll try to find out where the leak came from ( in production place or WH).. so i'll try to find effective method to detect any as Soon as possible.... The bag is new material packaging.. the old one is multiply paper bag (± 25 kg).

2. We dont use seal, there is only manualy tighten by "cable ties" and we found the leak at the body of bag...PE more flyble then PP, and we need flexyble plastic.. so we choose PE...

3.And according to test that done by supplier, the bag can handled up to ± 3000 kg and we just fil it ± 600 kg.. and max. staging is 2 (weight ± 1200 kg)...

yup.. thanks Arya.. we still find the best solutin

Dear AS NUR,

As per recent comments, I think my first activity would be to strongly dump the problem on the supplier who looks the most likely source ?
Try another supplier if that is easily possible for a comparison ? A problem shared is a problem "reduced", sometimes anyway !

Rgds - Charles.C

thanks for the replay charles..

.. FYI the problem not in supplier... we try find the root case and after observation the problem came from processing in our line.. and now we try to fix the problems and to monitoring the leak we try to find another effective method...I hope after we improve the processing procedure we dont see any leak again...

Dear AS NUR,

And the actual problem was ?? A sharp-pointed object ? I'm sure many people are now interested, if the solution is not a commercial confidentiality

Rgds / Charles.C

the actual problems is how to handle bgbag in during production area, we always hit the bag with hand during filling process to make powder fill the corner of bag.. and the update data, we find small dot in inner plastic, thats came from supplier, and we ask to supplier about that.... and I think the combination of the probllems that make leak in our bag..
so.. now we try to improve our filling process, we dont use hit anymore, and make sure there is no small dot in inner plastic again.. and the recent data show us, that we can reduce the bag leak from 10% to 1.23%...BUt i still need more information from all of you to give us some idea to improve our performance...

Dear AS Nur,


Perhaps, by reducing the dumping/filling speed might help to reduce the pressure on the bag and also fill the bag's corner with easily. Im happy you could reduce the defect on significant numbers


Regards,


Arya

yes arya.. you'r right.. what we are doing is reducing filling speed and adjust distance between pallet and bag before filling process start, thats make the powder fall and the bottom of bag turn down to pallet slowly and powder can fill the corner with small shaking...

BTW thanks for your post and support Arya...

Selamat bekerja

Dear AS NUR,

Fascinating Sherlock Holmes type story.

I'm guessing you hv already passed through this possibility but some time ago I had a random problem of plastic wrapped frozen materials being found with severe freezer burn at destination. To summarise a very long and expensive story, the cause was occasional inter-mixing of plastic wrappers by one supplier using recycled plastic. After a period (ie during shipment) the sub-standard wrappers developed micro-leaks allowing the product to, amazingly quickly, dehydrate. Needless to say, all supplied material was fully documented.

Rgds / Charles.C

yes..Charles.. we try to be a sherloc holmes.. i remember last year i attended training about problems solving and decision making.. in that training we have to find a root case from the problems. and we studied about kepner method to find it...
And now i try to implement my "Detective" knowledge to fix the leak problems....even i can't find the root case, IMO.. i can learn more from that...

Hello ASNUR.
If I understand correctly, you put the big bag close to the mouth of the packer, then you slowly lower it, so that all corners are filled?
We have a similar problem with corn grits, but when we´re almost finished filling the bag. We have to shake the bag (with a pallet truck) to try to get the corners filled and not have a dome shape in the middle of the bag. If we leave a dome in the middle, when we put another big bag on top, it´s very unstable and the pallet in between breaks easily.
Any suggestions about how to avoid this dome?

dear Mrios..

we adjust filling line height once, to set distance between bottom of bag and pallet ± 2 cm (before fillin process) and during filing after the powder come in. the botom of bag turn down automatiocally to pallet and with little shaking the powder can fill the corner of bigbag...

FYI.. my product (non dairy creamer) is more fine than yours (corn grits ), our product have Bulk density ± 0.5 and i think your product BD less then 0.5 .. But you can try to shake the bag immediately before the bag full...And dont forget to set the distance between bag and pallet (try ± 2 - 5 cm) filling bag turn down and make the product fill the corner ( sorry i can.'t describe how this method work)...

Dear MRios,

A bigger or longer sack may helpful perhaps?


Regards,


Arya

Dear arya..

if you use to big or long bag.. that some potential problem on handling during filling , storage process and if you use that more "head space atthe top of bag thats potential problems to your product because of micro..

Dear AS NUR,

Hopefully yr problem as discussed in this thread has long gone away however, just for info, I noticed this link to a range of maybe related testing equipment

http://www.foodonlin...S...&image1.y=0

Seems yr problem type is big business. But these machines look expensive.

Rgds / Charles.C

thanks for the link charles.. interseting machine i'll try to propose this machine to our management.. actually we can reduce the leak problems.. now we can find only one or two problem.. compared with last month we found up to 10 bag..
but we still need tio make it zero...
keep improve it now

Dear As Nur,

whether you are using the big bags for the intermediate storage during production or final packing to customer ?