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industry news
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Smile ... you're on Compac camera
THE numbers say it all – up to 60 images per item and around ten items per second. What it means, simply, is that sorting the best from the mediocre – and the good from the bad – can be done quickly and efficiently, using some of the world’s best technology, developed right here in New Zealand.
 | | Gawler Basil with a machine for sorting potatoes by size and external quality |
But behind the smart technology is an even smarter company that had its beginnings in the kiwifruit industry over 20 years ago. Founder, Hamish Kennedy figured there had to be a better way to automate the task of sorting and packing the fruit from his family’s Kerikeri orchard, and that innovation formed the basis for Compac Sorting Equipment.
Today the company provides software (and the associated hardware and machinery) to many of the leading fruit and vegetable packing houses around the world. Its credentials read like a list of who’s who in using clever technology; from USA apple and citrus pack houses through to stonefruit in France, avocados in Chile and potatoes in Australia.
What the Compac technology does is help these companies to improve their efficiency and confidence in the quality of their product as well as re-allocate labour to gain better productivity and cost control. In short, it helps optimise a company’s potential, no matter what the product, through improved systems that ‘read’ and compare a variety of userdefined qualities in the items running through the camera system.
Whilst the system has the capability to sort by weight, shape, density and diameter, it’s the advanced colour and defect recognition that is propelling Compac’s global reach, with its potential to rapidly and accurately handle a variety of products.
The company develops technology for grading produce by external and internal defects and continually improving software functionality for colour and weight sorting, currently used in the fruit and vegetable post-harvest sector.
Nigel Beach, Compac’s research and development manager, explains why the colour recognition ‘InVision’ system is becoming the preferred option. “What we’ve developed is a holistic system to rotate the product correctly for optical inspection, weigh the product to a high level of accuracy and then distribute with maximum flexibility. For a modern blemish system the cameras capture anywhere from 40-80 pictures from all angles of a single fruit before performing advanced image and 3D analysis. Processing power is important as the largest machine built so far can process over 10,000 digital images per second.
“Because product is natural, it is difficult to work with, as it is non-uniform and non-homogenous. Every fruit variety can offer different challenges and the software has to allow for many possible scenarios to be accurate in its decision making, just as a human would.
“The Compac InVision system is looking at the surface colours, as well as for marks or external blemishes, physical damage (cuts or punctures), shape and size. It means the packer can be sure of the quality that they deliver to their customers, increase their production capacity and optimise their available staff.”
Mr Beach says the technology has huge potential across a range of businesses, where the software could be applied to enhance quality assurance. The company is actively looking for new sectors to work in, and in the early days of development even fielded an enquiry from a Cuban cigar manufacturer. Whilst this never proceeded, it does illustrate lateral thinking in the application of colour recognition technology as a business tool and provides a glimpse into its use for the future.
Compac is undergoing continual development with its technology and the 100 plus strong Auckland-based staff includes a dedicated machine vision R&D team. The company has achieved its goal of becoming a world-renowned provider of sizing, sorting and grading technology and continues to outperform industry expectations not only with its technology but also with the attention to detail and service support in a number of countries. Compac solutions are now being manufactured on four continents under the NZ umbrella.
“It helps,” says Nigel Beach,” to work with some of the world’s best end users who are very vocal about what they want. This has helped us refine what we do and means we are able to predict and meet needs as they arise and now Compac equipment is widely used in over 20 countries.”
In 2003, the Compac-developed technology was snapped up for blemish grading of the California citrus crop, with the first commercial installation of the InVision technology. One of the world’s largest sorting lines – 40 lanes each of 60 metres long – was installed in California, capable of sorting 300 fruit per second … or over one million fruit per hour.
Mr Beach says every technology must maximise the return on investment for the customer and that’s been one of the key drivers for the business.
For further information, contact: Compac Sorting Equipment Ltd,
11 Spring St, Onehunga, Auckland,
Tel: 09 634 0088, or visit www.compacsort.com
Article from New Zealand Food Technology
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