Weighing plays a significant role in the food production process. Accurate weighing is key to maintaining quality and meeting compliance standards. Inaccurate weighing can cause products to be out of specification and cost the business money.
Level or inventory weighing applications involve monitoring the level of a storage vessel. They don’t usually require time-critical weight cutoffs.
Accuracy
Accuracy is a critical specification that must be taken into account when choosing a scale or balance. However, it is not a standalone variable; it depends on other specifications, such as repeatability and linearity. Accuracy is also dependent on how the weighing instrument is installed and operated in your environment.
For example, if your weigh vessel is subject to vibrations from nearby equipment, the sensitive load can interpret these as weight changes and lead to inaccurate results. Similarly, sudden large temperature fluctuations can affect the accuracy of your system.
Inaccuracies can also occur if the weight of your material is not evenly distributed across the whole weigh vessel. This can cause the strain gauges in your load cells to twist, which will change the signal from the wheatstone bridge and create an error that will be transmitted to your display or indicator. This is known as hysteresis. To reduce this, use a rigid support structure to keep the weight from spreading out.
Traceability
Traceability is a concept that defines the ability to track and trace unique and identifiable entities in a way that is verifiable. It’s used in a variety of applications including measurement, supply chain, software development and healthcare.
It’s important for food producers because it allows them to track and trace all the steps of production. This allows them to quickly find any issues and take corrective action if needed. It also helps them comply with regulations.
Effective traceability requires all parties involved in the process to cooperate. This includes suppliers, freight, logistics and food processing companies. It also involves establishing and maintaining an audit trail, which is crucial in regulated industries. In addition, traceability enables streamlined inventory management and reduced costs. This is achieved by tracking inventory movements and capturing details about the handling history of each product. These details can be used for forecasting and optimizing stock control and storage. It can also help businesses save money by reducing waste and rework.
Reliability
There are a few elements that can affect the reliability of your weighing system. Some of them include environmental factors, such as large temperature changes, which can cause the weigh vessel to expand or contract. This can lead to errors in the weight reading and damage the load cells. If you want to minimise these errors, you should use a weighing system with accurate load cells and mounting hardware that can handle large temperature changes.
Another important factor is the accuracy of the weighing system itself. Having an accurate and reliable weighing system is essential for food manufacturing applications. These applications can include continuous monitoring of a silo or inventory, batch weighing, and discharging material by rate.
These weighing systems need to be highly accurate, as even small errors can have a huge impact on the quality of the product. To maximize the accuracy of a weighing system, you should choose high-quality load cells that are created to work with your system and adhere to good installation guidelines.
Cost
While the initial investment in automated weighing processes may be high, the long-term benefits far outweigh the costs. This is because fewer raw materials are lost due to accurate measurements, and product consistency can help businesses meet customer demand more efficiently.
In food production, for example, accurate weighing ensures that ingredients are added in the correct order. This reduces waste and maintains the quality of the finished product. This level of precision is also important for food safety and compliance with regulatory standards.
Direct weighing is a simple method that eliminates the need for intermediate steps. This method uses a load cell to measure applied force, which is translated into an electrical signal. This signal is compared to a preset reference value, allowing for fast and accurate measurement. The resulting signal is displayed on the local display, which can be used in gain-in-weight and loss-in-weight applications. Typical applications for this system include rate of change, silo level indication, and hopper emptying/filling.