8 replies to this topic

[ChandanQC]

Hi, I looking for recommendations. 

 

Product: vacuum-sealed pack

Issue: The conveyor stopped working. It requires a new motor which will take a week to come.

Currently, We are passing the product manually through the metal detector. It detects the test pieces. I am looking for the best alternative way for this problem which I can add to the corrective action plan.

 

[Scampi]

you should always have a replacement motor on the shelf ALWAYS

 

What do your deviation procedures say you should do when this happens?  If it's not listed, you need to revise to include this 

 

You can also rent conveyors, perhaps you need to do that 

[Setanta]

Are there any other conveyors that you could 'borrow' the motor for? This way seems very labor intensive, and I am not sure that manually passing something thru an aperture works the same.

[Charles.C]

Hi, I looking for recommendations. 

 

Product: vacuum-sealed pack

Issue: The conveyor stopped working. It requires a new motor which will take a week to come.

Currently, We are passing the product manually through the metal detector. It detects the test pieces. I am looking for the best alternative way for this problem which I can add to the corrective action plan.

As a corollary to Post 2, you should probably also consider what action would be possible if the MD stopped working ?

 

Unfortunately from a financial POV backups are sometimes (risk-based?) advisable.

 

You could simply store/segregate the unscanned product until system back online if logistically feasible to scan everything later.

 

Depending on the process you might be able to (temporarily) rewrite your haccp plan to justify non-use of a MD but this can obviously create potential conundrums.

[Brothbro]

Easiest solutions that come to mind are taking a conveyor from a different part (post3) of your plant or placing the product on hold until it can be metal detected at a later date (post4). Manually putting the product through an MD can be tricky, aren't metal detectors detection rates somewhat reliant on the speed at which an item passes through them? If operators slide product through too quickly you may not get a good read. If you have someone manually passing product through an MD for hours they're likely to get complacent and just whip everything through it as fast as possible.

[Planck]

 

ChandanQC, on 08 Sept 2023 - 12:10 AM, said:

Hi, I looking for recommendations. 
 
Product: vacuum-sealed pack
Issue: The conveyor stopped working. It requires a new motor which will take a week to come.
Currently, We are passing the product manually through the metal detector. It detects the test pieces. I am looking for the best alternative way for this problem which I can add to the corrective action plan.

The detection sensitivity of a metal detector is directly related to the speed of passage.
Although you can detect it after testing, there must be a difference in sensitivity, and the range of variation in the difference is very large and beyond your control.
A simple way to verify this is to record the signal value obtained each time you pass through the test pieces.
 
In short, you need to ensure consistency and stability in passing speeds.
But you can't do it manually unless you stand the machine up and let the product fall freely.

[jfrey123]

No way I'd be signing off on manually passing product through a detector, as all of the belt fed metal detector validations I've worked with include the belt speed as one of the parameters.  As mentioned by Brothbro, you can't guarantee the operators aren't throwing trays through faster than the MD can detect.

 

I'd be scouring all my vendors for a rig to rent or overnighting a new motor.  In the plants I've worked in where MD was a CCP, this would result in a shutdown or automatic hold of all product until such time the MD can be repaired and product can be run per manner in the SOP (which should reference your validation).

Edited by jfrey123, 07 September 2023 - 05:25 PM.

[ChandanQC]

Thanks for the so many responses. 

The product is on hold, thankfully there was a wiring issue, and it was resolved. The conveyor is working again, have ordered a spare motor as well.

[Hoosiersmoker]

Thanks for the so many responses. 

The product is on hold, thankfully there was a wiring issue, and it was resolved. The conveyor is working again, have ordered a spare motor as well.

We have replacement parts on the shelf for all our critical machinery. ALL consumables and high wear, critical parts are on the shelf, sometimes in multiples for extra redundancy. One of the motors for a press is about a 25 HP with all necessary attachments (Clutch, brake, encoder etc.) It's about a $12,000 assembly but we could lose that in a short time if we couldn't replace it immediately, in-house. We send bad ones to Germany to be rebuilt then put it back on the shelf for next time. We have a room with cabinets full of spare parts for our machines. It seems like a lot of money but compared to nothing leaving production it's relatively inexpensive especially the larger the company.