Detection of leaking cans, alucups, (etc.) on pallet
Dear All,
I have a question in connection with finished product quality checks.
At my current company we are filling our meat products into cans, alucups, and pouches.
After sterilization these products are in our warehouse for the time of maturation. In most cases if there is some problem with an item we can see it during the maturation time (several days).
Wrong sealing, packaging damage, micro holes cause leakage, swollen/puffy cans, or exploded cans (or alucups, or pouches).
These bad products can be sorted out before packing them into secondary, tertiary packaging and putting them on the pallets.
However in some cases micro-holes can cause swollen or exploded products AFTER the maturation, and after packing and putting finished good on pallets. After palletization it is really hard to detect those leaking or exploded items on the ready pallets. In most cases the shops found them when they put the products on the shelf.
Do you have a solution for checking the pallets so the damaged, swollen, leaking, exploded items can be found also in the middle of a pallet?
Cans are on the top of each other, or in cardboard trays. Alucups and pouches are in cardboard trays and boxes.
The most straight forward way is to not palletize for shipment until the complete maturation process is complete.....then perform final product sampling (leak checks) on random units and then build pallets to ship out
If you find this is happening regularly, do you need to investigate the root cause? is the pasteuriser or other control always functioning correctly? Do you need to change container suppliers? Is it normal to have failures in each and every batch?
Hello ujzaghfruzs,
Your method is more on reactive than pro-active. I suggest to dig deeper in the root cause why you have recurring problems in sealing and micro holes which causes product spoilage. If you can control that problem you dont have to worry during maturation of your product.
regards,
redfox
The most straight forward way is to not palletize for shipment until the complete maturation process is complete.....then perform final product sampling (leak checks) on random units and then build pallets to ship out
If you find this is happening regularly, do you need to investigate the root cause? is the pasteuriser or other control always functioning correctly? Do you need to change container suppliers? Is it normal to have failures in each and every batch?
Hello ujzaghfruzs,
Your method is more on reactive than pro-active. I suggest to dig deeper in the root cause why you have recurring problems in sealing and micro holes which causes product spoilage. If you can control that problem you dont have to worry during maturation of your product.
regards,
redfox
Dear scampi and redfox,
Thank you for your quick answers.
Yes, you are right about that this is a reactive approach. Root cause analysis is not complete, it is still an ongoing procedure. The situation has got a lot better since the problem emerged. However bad sealing is happening with the optimal setup as well - of course in a much smaller ratio, but if one of these products get spoiled they contaminate the packaging of 5-6 other product, too. And we still don't know how to find the reason of micro holes (in case of alucups and pouches). If you have a proposal how to check or test this, it would be appreciated.
I also wonder if you have some kind of experience with e-noses. What do you think, could an e-nose measurement be a final test of conformity before sending the ready pallet to customer? Did you hear something about such kind of e-nose application?
Thanks in advance
Hello ujzaghfruzs,
Actually we have the same primary packaging used. We area also using metal cans, plastic cups with aluminum lid, and pouches to pack our product which is also undergo pasteurization.
You have to do robust inspection in your alucups and pouches sealing. If your alucups is easy-open type, sometimes the leak is not on the sealing but on the easy-open tab. If it is bumped by another alucups during seaming and pasteurizing that causes the leak. We do leak test on out cups by pumping air to 10 psi. Put the cup in water to see if no bubbles will come out from the double seam and lid.
In pouches we do heat sealing strength test and during packing we do 100% inspection on the sealing line. I assume your pouches are ROP, if there is leakage it looks loose. Sometimes sealing becomes loose after heat treatment. There are also cases that meat is sandwiched on the sealing line which causes the leak. Sealing line must be cleaned from meat debris before sealing.
A trained and experienced packing personnel can easily detects the problem. But as I wrote in my previous post, eliminate or reduce the problem during seaming and sealing step. I think it is a CCP. Any process deviation must be addressed accordingly.
regards,
redfox
Hello ujzaghfruzs,
Actually we have the same primary packaging used. We area also using metal cans, plastic cups with aluminum lid, and pouches to pack our product which is also undergo pasteurization.
You have to do robust inspection in your alucups and pouches sealing. If your alucups is easy-open type, sometimes the leak is not on the sealing but on the easy-open tab. If it is bumped by another alucups during seaming and pasteurizing that causes the leak. We do leak test on out cups by pumping air to 10 psi. Put the cup in water to see if no bubbles will come out from the double seam and lid.
In pouches we do heat sealing strength test and during packing we do 100% inspection on the sealing line. I assume your pouches are ROP, if there is leakage it looks loose. Sometimes sealing becomes loose after heat treatment. There are also cases that meat is sandwiched on the sealing line which causes the leak. Sealing line must be cleaned from meat debris before sealing.
A trained and experienced packing personnel can easily detects the problem. But as I wrote in my previous post, eliminate or reduce the problem during seaming and sealing step. I think it is a CCP. Any process deviation must be addressed accordingly.
regards,
redfox
Dear redfox,
Do I understand well from your message, that in your factory you use some kind of inline leak detection?
Thanks again
BR, Fruzsina
Hello BR. Fruzsina,
Yes we have. As seaming/sealing step is our CCP, we have set critical limit for our monitoring. Ex: metal cans every 350 seamed 1 sample for double seam evaluation; cups every 240 seamed 1 sample for seam evaluation and leak test(air pump test); pouch every 280 seal 1 sample heat seal strength test, 100% seal inspection. During packing can, cup and pouches are also inspected 100%. Can and cup with defective seam may buckle of and absorbed water during heat treatment process. Pouches may become loose and absorbed water if it has leaks.
With those inspections, we did not have any complaint about defective cans, cups and pouches from customers.
regards,
redfox