How to set up Blade Checks?

Hi 

Please help and advise the best way to get over the following.

We have been asked by one of our customers we need to do a blade check on FAM Dicers every hour which is fair enough. However the business is not prepared to pay out on new blade every time there is a breakage.

How do I get round this one to determine when the break is serious an how to record on the check sheets

Thanks

I'm sure the real question is what happens when a fan blade breaks and how does it impact the safety & quality of the food item?

If I heard this I would stop in my tracks and food safety alarm bells would go up in my head.....where did the broken piece go?  What about fragments?

Umm, I'm with Ryan 100% in this one. If they are breaking/chipping so often that paying for new blades is the problem to you, that means the broken pieces are a huge physical FM risk to your customers, right?

I don't think your customer is looking for a 'is it serious enough' type of pass/fail, they are looking for assurances that there are no broken pieces or shards of blade in their ingredients...

If it is more to make sure there are no pieces of blade in the product you could use a metal detector, if the company were willing to pay for that.

We do have a metal detector!

We do have a breakage procedure and reporting for investigation.

My issue is if the blade is already broken and it is put on the machine - one of the questions is " Is the blades Broken" and the answer would be yes

As TimG mentioned you need to provide assurance to your customer.  If I was your customer I would not be happy with the current situation, even with the metal detector downstream of the equipment.  The problem is the metal detector only detects what it can detect and it really is not a fail safe solution...it only DETECTS.

You need to do a root cause analysis and determine why you are breaking blades as such a frequent occurrence AND can you somehow reduce the occurrence of blade breakage.  Additionally, you need to ensure your SOP around a broken blade is very robust.

Don't get lulled into being "safe" just because you have a metal detector.

Now, if you have done all this and really there is no way to reduce blade breakage further, your metal detector verification & validation is very robust, and your break procedure is very robust then you need to have a conversation with the customer to provide them assurance because of XYZ the blade can in fact be broken, but your product is still completely safe and here is why.

Have blade inspection program and passing product through metal Detector. 

Good Shout  kfromNE
 
How would you note previous breaks?

We have a very similar blade on our diced line. Stones get in and damage the blades occasionally, there is no ifs and or buts about it.  If the blade has any damage, product is dumped and the damaged blades replaced asap.  Yes our metal detectors will identify some pieces but no guarantee that it will catch them all.

Hi

I follow what you are saying Jim E. we do exactly the same apart from replace the blade as the MD does not and wont pay to replace.

So i need to come up with something to check blades hourly as customer requires but how I do this if there is breakages already on the blades i don't know !!

:helpplease:

It sounds like you have no choice but to  stop production, inspect ALL the blades, note any damages, any that have to be replaced etc

The blades should be engraved with individual identifiers for reporting and maintenance tasks

Best of luck