published on 16/04/09
Alatoni needed to make its quality control processes quicker and more efficient. The food company, based in Bicester, Oxfordshire, marinates and packs olives and speciality foods into plastic pots. Alatoni’s existing metal detectors were too slow and required a lot of attention from the machine operators. Contract engineers were brought in to install the combined IQ3 metal detector and checkweigher.
Alatoni invested in three Loma metal detectors, two of which are combined checkweighers, which were installed by the mechanical engineers over a two-year period. As the company’s existing metal detectors wore out, they were replaced with Loma machines by the contract engineers.

The metal detector can operate at frequencies between 40kHz and 900kHz. A traditional single-frequency metal detector needs internal adjustments – and often an engineer will have to fit new electronics – to inspect different products. The range of frequencies means Alatoni is not restricted to inspecting one type of product on each metal detector. The Automatic Product Learn system can calibrate and learn the settings for up to 100 different products.

'Everything went smoothly during the installation of all of the machines,' says Buchanan. During the last scheduled service, Alatoni asked the contract engineer to find out why one of the conveyor belts was slipping. The problem was fixed there and then by changing one of the bearings. 'If we have had a problem then the contract engineers were there immediately which is why they are also responsible for the maintenance and servicing of the machines” he adds

Read the full article at Packagingnews.co.uk