Getting a check-up from head to toe

Just like we human beings, production equipment also needs a health check-up every now and then. However, if a packaging or processing line is no longer running at full capacity, a brief consultation with the general practitioner isn’t enough. What food and pharmaceutical producers need to keep their lines going at high output and with good product quality for decades is a thorough audit, performed by a team of specialist ‘doctors’. Their mission is to identify the underlying issues and prescribe the right treatment to optimize performance and processes. Whether it is the output or scrap rate, set-up or handling time – packaging and processing lines have many areas where subtle problems can hide. Even a line that has been running seemingly efficient for years will eventually see a loss in performance. If this takes place very gradually, it is hard to notice until the initial and the current output is compared. But once a problem is recognized, how is the manufacturer to identify these hidden issues without disassembling the entire line? Technical audit The…

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