Product Inspection Equipment

Reliable product inspection equipment is a vital part of the production process, helping to verify that products are free of contamination and look their best. Product inspection helps to:

• Prevent end-of-line defects and faulty or contaminated products
• Automate final inspection processes to increase production efficiency
• Prevent common or repeat mistakes caused by human error
• Verify the high quality of your products and protect your brand
• Maintain the life of your equipment through comprehensive service offerings

Food and beverage industries

Product inspection helps to support the delivery of products that are correct, complete, and safe - inside and out. These systems provide inline product inspection solutions for the processing and packaging of wet, dry, fresh, and frozen food. They help prevent contaminated and under or overweight products from reaching consumers and verify that products have no defects and look their best when they leave the production facility. In addition, product inspection systems help businesses comply with industry legislation and codes of practice including IFS, BRCGS, SQF and FSSC 22000 standards.

Pharmaceutical and nutraceutical industries

From in-process to end-of-line applications, product inspection can help manufacturers deliver high product quality and integrity to their clients with the efficient and safe removal of contaminated, underweight, overweight, incomplete, or damaged products. METTLER TOLEDO also offers complete solutions for serialization and aggregation applications – necessary for effective Track & Trace programs – which help improve supply chain security and prevent the spread of counterfeit drugs. Our software provides complete digital audit trails to help prove compliance with all relevant regulations. We can also support quality inspection of medical devices using our x-ray inspection solutions.

Cosmetic and chemical industries

Product inspection systems can be tailored to fit specific manufacturing challenges. The most advanced inline product inspection systems are optimized for a wide variety of applications and products – providing total confidence in the inspection, weighing, and sorting of bulk liquids, powders, or granules to small and medium-sized packaged consumer goods. End of the line inspection of final packaging such as cartons and cases is also possible.

Physical contamination detection

Contaminated products can cause serious harm if they reach a consumer; they can also cause an enormous headache for manufacturers. They result in costly recalls and retailer fines, as well as damage to brand reputation. To remain compliant with industry regulations and retailer standards, manufacturers must have contamination detection capabilities. Product inspection systems can detect a variety of different contaminants, including metal, glass, plastics, mineral stone, calcified bone, and rubber. Depending on the specific requirements of your application, you may require either a metal detection or an x-ray system (or both).

Package fill control and inspection

Unnecessary product giveaway can result in lost profits, while underfilling of products can result in fines or even a product recall. It is important to have a method for verifying that the required amount of product is present within its packaging. Inline checkweighing systems verify the weight of every single product on the production line and can even provide real-time feedback and control of filling systems to help avoid both over and underfilling of product packaging, in accordance with relevant weighing regulations. X-ray systems can also perform checks on products to verify kit completion for packages with multiple components.

Content and package quality inspection

There are a number of factors that go into making sure final products look their best and are not at risk of being damaged or spoiled in transit. Detecting packaging faults early in the process maintains your product quality, while also reducing the need for product re-work and potential waste further down the processing line. Vision systems inspect every package as it travels on the production line, verifying packaging quality.

Label inspection

Product labeling is the final line of communication between producer and customer. It is also an easily prevented source of product recalls. Vision inspection systems verify the presence, contents, and readability of product labels to prevent label mix-up as well as label data and quality issues.

Product integrity inspection

Product integrity refers to the completeness or wholeness of a product. This can refer to everything from the presence of all expected pieces in a kit to damaged or broken goods contained within a case. Product inspection equipment can identify damaged, underfilled or incomplete products through a variety of methods, from checkweighing to vision inspection to x-ray inspection.

Track and Trace

Product inspection solutions can include equipment for serialization and aggregation applications. The serialization of products increases their traceability as they travel through the supply chain, which in turn helps prevent grey market sales and counterfeiting. Track and trace systems can handle the complete process, from generating/requesting unique serial numbers for individual packages through to aggregating numbers for cases and pallets.

Statistical process and quality control

Product inspection systems generate runtime data, which can be transmitted to central control systems, allowing for a real time view of system performance. ProdX productivity software from METTLER TOLEDO delivers comprehensive reports for compliance with national and international laws or standards and can be a key element of your digitalization strategy.

System integration and OEM partnerships

Standalone product inspection systems do not always provide the best use of space on the production line - particularly when that space is limited. To provide the best possible product inspection solutions to our customers, METTLER TOLEDO will work closely together with other OEMs to design and build production equipment with integrated product inspection capabilities, making efficient use of space.

X-ray inspection systems can detect a variety of foreign contamination from metal, glass, dense plastics, mineral deposits, calcified bone and rubber.  Metal detection systems can detect all types of metal including ferrous, non-ferrous and stainless steel. These contaminants can be readily found using modern product inspection systems on fast moving production lines. The level of detection sensitivity of the equipment will generally depend on the following (among other factors):

• The size and location of the contaminant
• The speed of the production line
• The comparative density of the contaminant to the product being inspected
• The type of product packaging material

Making the sort of capital investment that purchasing product inspection equipment represents can be a long process, and it is important to have as much information as possible. To help make your decision easier, METTLER TOLEDO has a variety of different options for learning more about our systems, including in-person and virtual demos, along with test centers to demonstrate the capabilities of our inspection systems on your products.

We also offer a wide variety of rental machines which give you the flexibility of trying out a system before you invest in ownership.

Sometimes there is no time for a lengthy acquisition of capital equipment; other times you may only need a particular piece of equipment for a limited production run. In select global locations, METTLER TOLEDO offers a quick ship option for many of our standard systems, allowing them to be rapidly dispatched to your production facility. Rental systems are also available, allowing you to quickly install a complete functional product inspection system and get your production process up and running as soon as possible.