Frequently Asked Questions

There is an increasing demand worldwide that food products should be processed and delivered to the consumers through safe and assured processes. In order to assure food product quality, a series of quality inspections must be performed in food manufacturing lines including the inspection of contaminants, product integrity, and the checkweighing of packaged items. The role of quality inspection systems are to ensure these inspections and to support the quality management.

Making invisible to visible—Anritsu quality inspection systems contribute to consumers' safety and fulfill a role appropriate to the needs of the times.

Anritsu's major products are X-ray inspection systems, metal detectors, and checkweighers. Their working principles are similar to household appliances but these industrial inspection systems have a distinctive feature: As installed in manufacturing lines, they perform inspections at production line speeds as high as hundreds of items per minute. Furthermore, the systems identify and reject defective items automtaically.

1. X-ray inspection system

Just like hospital X-rays and airport luggage X-ray machines do, X-ray inspection systems analyze an X-ray image that is obtained by radiating X-rays to an object. However, X-ray inspection systems differ from others in the following points:

• Automatically performs in-line inspection and rejection at production line speeds
• Inspection results vary depending on the object to be inspected and contaminants because X-ray absorption depends on the physical properties of the object and contaminants.

2. Metal detector

Metal detectors create magnetic fields and measure the disturbance of the fields when metals enter. Mine detectors and airport metal detectors also work on this principle. However, industrial metal detectors differ from others in the following points:

• Automatically performs in-line inspection and rejection at production line speeds
• Capable of detecting minute metal particles as small as less than 1 mm in diameter.

3. Checkweigher

Just like kitchen scales, checkweighers measure the weight of an object but differ from household scales in the following points:

• Automatically performs in-line weight measurement and rejection at production line speeds
• Measure the weights of in-motion products in high-speed running production lines.

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Glossary (X-ray Inspection System) ＞

Missing piece is detected.

This company's minced meat line uses the Anritsu X-ray inspection system to check for metal contaminants and remaining bone fragments in meat. When contaminants are detected, the X-ray inspection system instructs the rejector to remove the meat. The rejector cuts the meat immediately to remove the contaminated part.