“Hey, this box is half-empty,” Bob grumbles as he shakes cereal into his bowl. “What a ripoff. I’m never buying this junk again!”
If you haven’t invested in a checkweigher, consumers could be swearing off your goods just as quickly as Bob ditched his once-beloved breakfast.
Wondering how to maintain consistent product weight in your line? Installing the right checkweigher is the answer. Below, learn how to pick a system, plus other tips for keeping food weights in check.
How Checkweighers Nail Down the Right Weight Every Time
If you’ve ever used self-checkout for groceries, you’re already somewhat familiar with the concept of checkweighers. These systems, as the name suggests, precisely measure the weight of food products. If the weight fluctuates outside of a preset tolerance level, the system will send an alert to employees for review.
Checkweighers in food production lines are a bit fancier than the ones at your local grocery store. They weigh products in mere seconds and can automatically reject items that weigh too little or too much.
Checkweighers are ideal for all types of food products, including meats, dairy products, produce, and ready-to-eat meals.
Here’s an overview of how a checkweigher works:
- As food products move through the production line, they stop at the checkweigher, which includes sensors for weighing each item accurately. The system weighs the product and converts the weight to an electrical signal.
- The checkweigher compares the weight to a pre-set target weight and displays its findings on a digital screen. Many checkweighers also have lighting signal systems to enable workers to determine the status of products at a glance.
- The checkweigher decides whether to accept or reject the product. If the system accepts the item, it will continue down the production line. If the weight is out of range, the system will route it down another path for rejection.
To choose the right checkweigher, ask:
- What types of packaging will the checkweigher need to monitor (bags, boxes, cans, jars, etc.)?
- What are the environmental conditions in your workplace? For example, what’s the average temperature and airflow?
- What other equipment do you need to integrate the checkweigher with?
- Do you require a metal detector or x-ray inspection system? Combination systems are available. While more expensive than checkweigher-only systems, they do save space and improve efficiency.
- Does your business need to comply with USDA regulations? You’ll need a system that features USDA-certified food-grade conveyor belts.
- Does the checkweigher come with analytic software to help you determine its performance? The best ones include a dashboard you can easily access through your phone or computer.
- Does the manufacturer offer calibration, training, and testing? Some checkweigher manufacturers don’t provide any of these services. TDI Packsys provides all three.
Defining Food Product Specifications for Super-Precise Weighing and Portion Control
Is that food product within the right weight range? You can’t truly know the answer without first defining the item’s specifications.
To start, you’ll need to determine the desired weight for the product, as well as an acceptable tolerance limit. For example, your target weight might be 16 ounces, and your tolerance limit anywhere from 0.1 to 0.3 ounces. You can make the tolerance window as large or as small as you’d like.
Be sure to review and adjust your specifications regularly as processes on the production line change. You’ll also need to create thorough documentation to maintain quality control.
The Importance of Ingredient Sequencing on Product Quality
You’re in the mood for cake, so you decide to whip one up. The instructions say to add the sugar and flour first, but you’re feeling brave, so you mix in the eggs and baking powder first instead. Your cake comes out of the oven as flat as a pancake and hard enough to shatter glass.
A similar principle applies to food production. The final quality of an item can drastically change depending on the order of the ingredients. This is why you should always add ingredients in the same order for every product.
Many automated portioning systems not only add ingredients in the right product weights, but they can also control the sequencing of food components. Your company retains control over whether the machine adds ingredients simultaneously or in predetermined stages. This significantly reduces the chance of errors.
How Pre-Measuring Helps Maintain Accurate Weights
If you’re struggling to figure out how to maintain consistent product weight, consider pre-measuring your ingredients before batch processing on the production line. The main advantage of pre-measuring is knowing that your ingredient weights are correct before products move further through production. It’s easier to correct errors at the beginning rather than later in the process after you’ve packaged the items.
Here’s an example of how this process would look for a company producing frozen meals. At the beginning of the line, the system would pre-measure all the ingredients that a meal needs, such as green beans, carrots, meat, and so on. The equipment would then add those ingredients to each meal in the predetermined portions at certain steps along the production journey as specified by the manufacturer.
Integrating Dosing Equipment Into Your Setup
Suppose that your business produces cookies. What would happen if those cookies contained too many chocolate chips or, worse, too much flour? In the first scenario, you’d spend way too much money on an expensive ingredient. In the latter case, the cookies might be inedible. This is why having proper dosing equipment in your production line is a must.
But it’s not enough to simply install such equipment. You’ll also need to maintain it regularly and have it calibrated to make sure it stays accurate. Additionally, every production line should install monitoring equipment to ensure the dosing system adheres to pre-set quality assurance standards.
Maintaining Your Checkweighing System
Industrial checkweighers and mixing systems are robust, but that doesn’t mean they can go without regular maintenance. All systems are subject to wear and tear, more so in demanding production lines that process thousands of products per hour. In checkweighers, the motors, belts, and load cells are often the first parts to fail.
Conveyor belts can also become jammed with food debris and packaging. Inspect your conveyor belts regularly to ensure they are free of blockages that could hold up the line.
Rapid environmental changes can impact the performance of your equipment as well. Extreme moisture and sudden temperature fluctuations can throw off a checkweigher’s sensors, resulting in incorrect weights. Maintaining the system involves keeping the manufacturing environment consistent.
Software errors are another problem to watch out for. If the software stops working properly, so will the checkweigher. The best way to avoid errors is to update your software when the manufacturer releases a new version.
Maintaining your equipment may seem like a lot of work and an expensive hassle, but doing so will prevent expensive breakdowns and extended downtime on your line.
Why Good Operator Training and Documentation Is a Must
Although many checkweighing and measuring systems are automatic, that doesn’t mean you can let them run completely unattended. You’ll need employees to monitor the systems who know what to do if the equipment fails or rejects a product.
To get everyone on the same page, it’s vital to have regular meetings regarding the importance of proper weights in your products and the operation of quality control equipment. Holding hands-on training sessions is a good idea, too. Many equipment manufacturers offer in-house training, and the best ones include this training in the cost of the equipment. TDI Packsys provides training that covers everything your crew needs to know to work the checkweigher out of the gate.
Checkweighers From TDI Packsys
If you’re looking for the right checkweighers to help you with manufacturing efficiency, TDI Packsys has you covered. We offer a full range of checkweighing systems, from standard systems to multi-sorting equipment that can sort products by weight.
Our automated systems feature:
- Intuitive operator panels: No more guessing which button does what. Our user panels are easy to read and understand, so your operators can hit the ground running.
- High-sensitivity load cells: The higher the sensitivity of load cells, the more accurate the weight. Our checkweighers are equipped with highly sensitive load cells for the best performance.
- Easy to clean: If you process meat, dairy, or liquid products, you need an easily cleanable checkweigher, and our systems deliver. TDI Packsys checkweighers can tolerate a variety of cleaning methods to help your business stay in compliance with safety regulations.
- Environmental tolerance: Does your workplace have very cold or hot temperatures? Our systems are capable of tolerating temperatures ranging from 32 to 104 degrees.
And that isn’t all. We also offer complete support before, during, and after you get your checkweigher. We’ll calibrate the system and get your team up to speed with helpful training sessions. Plus, we offer annual testing to help your checkweigher maintain compliance standards.
Now that you’ve learned how to maintain consistent product weight, are you ready to add a checkweigher to your food production line? Call TDI Packsys at (877) 834-6750 to get help narrowing down your options.
