Newbaze Ireland Nutrition is using an AIS-Datalogic machine vision solution at its new facility in Carrickmacross, County Monaghan. This state-of-the-art facility is designed for dry blending of infant and follow-on milk formula.
Chinese consumers care deeply about the quality of the infant formula they buy and will pay a premium to be sure of product quality and safety. Europe is seen to offer the world’s highest quality food, made in a safer and more scientifically controlled environment.
Newbaze is using multi-faceted computerised cameras and visual sensors to capture the identification and
traceability parameters on every can and apply QR codes. Chinese consumers buying the blended formula powder can scan the QR code with their smart phones, and see exactly where the can was produced, the manufacturing date, the expiry date and other safety data.
Newbaze Ireland Nutrition also needs to comply with the EU853/2004, EU178/2002 and China GB23790 food safety regulations and prove this compliance. This means that every batch of baby formula must be 100% traceable.
We partnered with AIS to design and build this solution for QA and traceability.
“AIS designed our system to check each of these parameters so that we can prove with certainty that every can of formula is correct. For example, the system looks for text, and checks that it is present, complete, correct, and legible. It provides a positive verification that every can of formula we produce is right” commented Newbaze
“We combined a number of technologies in the solution,” Simon Smyth, AIS, explains. “Newbaze Ireland
Nutrition uses a barcode, a QR code and printed human readable characters on the top of each can. The barcode can be anywhere on the can, so that had to be readable at 360 degrees. Our solution reads all of the codes in one pass, and we cross-check the data to be sure that everything matches.”
“Datalogic’s cameras, scanners and Impact software were clearly the best choice for this project. Their off-the-shelf products fitted perfectly, and we added our own software that talks live to the traceability solution and feeds back data in real time. We then tested the full solution in our Dublin laboratories using cans manufactured by Newbaze Ireland Nutrition.”
“This process has been used for some time in China”, explains Newbaze Ireland Nutrition. “It gives the customers important information and helps to confirm that the product is genuine.”
Ireland is known for natural, green, and wholesome dairy farming. The Carrickmacross facility is a new venture by the Shanghai-based Newbaze Group, investing in Europe for the first time. The milk formula is sold under the Ireliffey brand.
Newbaze Ireland Nutrition is set to offer this state-of-the-art manufacturing facility for European food producers, for both large and small production volumes.