Large Grain Size (dried orange peel) Foreign Body Detection

Hi All-

My sales and R&D want to launch a product that is a coarse fiber.  Some of the pieces are up to .5 inches in length.  (everything else we make is ground to powder)  Can anyone think of a way to sieve for foreign material?  The raw material is an agricultural product (dried orange peel).  We do currently metal detect down to 2.0mm, but what about anything else?  Any experience with this?  I added a picture of the proposed product.

Hi All-

 

My sales and R&D want to launch a product that is a coarse fiber.  Some of the pieces are up to .5 inches in length.  (everything else we make is ground to powder)  Can anyone think of a way to sieve for foreign material?  The raw material is an agricultural product (dried orange peel).  We do currently metal detect down to 2.0mm, but what about anything else?  Any experience with this?  I added a picture of the proposed product.

Will vibratory screens work for removal of foreign material in your process?

Best bet is to not bring in raw material with a lot of foreign matter. Communicate to your supplier first what your specification is for foreign matter (ex. <1%).

What kind sifting machines do you currently have? What size is the foreign matter you are typically seeing?

Putting the product on a hand sorting table and passing that labor cost to your supplier is another option.

Thanks for the input!  I have worked on our supplier program, BUT, it has been difficult.  Everything we bring in is unprocessed, dried agriculture from South America.  And in phase one we have caught crazy large items.  We bring into a magnetic grate by hand.  But at the final point of the process I am concerned with plastic that could get through mesh greater than 2mm.

We do have a vibratory SWECO sieve.  Ours shakes, I don't know if there are different types.

Even if I have to sieve at say a 3.5 mesh size.  If I am controlling the incoming, maximizing my type of sifting, will it be enough to be confident?  Can you think of anything else system-wise, or OPRP that will add to it?  Or, should I stop perseverating about it?

Any budget for new kit to help with the project?
Not likely to be cheap, but there is some very impressive optical sorting equipment available these days - I've seen these used successfully for both dry/solid products and for semi-liquid suspensions. Likely to give you the confidence you want, but will require some CapEx ;)

For incoming raw material make sure you are taking a representative sample (square root +1 of the total number of packages). Inspect that sample very thoroughly and record all findings. If quality, production, etc. doesn't think the foreign matter (if any) can be removed than return the raw material. There are of course other controls you can look in to, but between a solid incoming inspection process and knowledgeable equipment personal to consult with and set up the SWECO, this should cover a lot of the risk.

CapEX?!?!  What is that: :rofl2:

I hadn't thought of a representable sample.  That may close the gap on my concern, very good idea!  Thank you to everyone!