“If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.” – Peter Drucker One of the most important quotes in business management couldn’t be more important for Australian manufacturers today. With the right metrics, you can understand what’s working in your production line, and what’s not. You can find weak spots and barriers to efficient production. […]
In light of the current strawberry-confidence crisis, what options can packers look at to protect their produce and businesses? Just now there is a crisis of consumer confidence in the Australian strawberry market: there have been some 100 reported instances of needles or pins being found in strawberries in Queensland, NSW, Victoria, Tasmania and South […]
There’s nothing like the New Year to make you review and evaluate your manufacturing business. So, how will you do things differently in 2018? We asked some industry experts what they believe to be the number-one New Year’s resolution every manufacturer should make. And while they had different ideas, there’s one thing upon which they […]
What gets measured gets done. It might be an old cliché, but it still rings true for manufacturers today. Only by collecting the right data in your business can you make steps to improve. But which measures should you rely on? How can you know you’ve got your finger on the “quality pulse” of your […]
The challenge of metal contamination in packaged food is a big one. With metal and non-magnetic stainless steel among the biggest culprits for food contamination today, many food processors choose a metal detection system to seek out even the smallest metal contaminants in their product. While metal detection is incredibly beneficial to food processing and […]
The just-released Packaging Technology Survey 2017 reported that one of the biggest pressures facing today’s business managers, engineers and operations managers is the constant demand for increased operational efficiency and throughput without compromising quality. No surprises there. However, what may come as more of a surprise is the fact that only 16% of companies surveyed […]
Ready meals are a fast-growing category. But they’re not straightforward to inspect. Here, we reveal the technologies ready to meet the challenge of ready meal inspection. Ready meals have come a long way in the past few decades. In the words of CSIRO Professor Martin Cole: “Ready meals are not 1970s TV dinners, but highly […]
Quality is everything in manufacturing today. But the demand for more products and faster turnaround times means it’s no longer enough to rely on human inspection to achieve the high level of standards customers and consumers expect. That’s where automated inspection systems come in. Metal detectors, checkweighers, scanners, X-ray and vision inspection … there’s a […]
Worried about wasting profits? Here’s how as a manufacturer, you can calculate the ROI of your checkweigher to help maximise the bang for your buck. We’ve previously discussed the benefits of lean manufacturing and how to boost your business’s operational efficiency and competitiveness. But there’s one very obvious way to reduce waste on the production […]
As the Japanese master of lean manufacturing, Dr Shigeo Shingo, once said: “Humans are animals that make mistakes.” (Learn more about lean here. You can also find out how SMEs can benefit from lean manufacturing.) In today’s manufacturing industry, quality and compliance is everything. However, it’s no longer enough to rely on human inspection. More […]