Hello all,
I ran up against a clause that I am not sure how best to address. I was hoping the rest of you would have some good ideas.
To set the stage...I am working with a company that thermally processes packaged foods in hermetically sealed (often times metal) containers. Although the process is done year round, there are a number of lines that are run for only about 3 months of the year. My risk assessment demonstrates that metal detection would improve the detection of the final products. Unfortunately, that would be a major capital investment being as packages of varying sizes are run on all of the lines producing different products all at the same time. There are some magnets and screens already in place on the lines. However, many of the products contain particulate greater than 1/4 inch. Because of the size of particulate, I don't see fine sieves as being an option. I was thinking that they may be able add rare earth magnets as a semi-economical solution, but being as they have a lot of stainless steel equipment, I'm not sure that would be much of a help either. To me, x-ray seems like the best option a this point, but the cost of putting 6 new x-rays in-line directly after filling seems insurmountable.
Have any of the rest of you run into this type of situation before?
Another idea that I had was about renting x-ray equipment. Have any of you ever heard of this being done?