Pack Expo 2024: Antares Vision Group talks supply chain tracking
17 Dec 2024 | Antares Vision Group
We speak to Richard Reardon, general manager for FT System North America at Antares Vision Group about product inspection technologies, supply chain traceability, food quality assurance and the biggest challenges the US packaging market is facing.
Hey, we're live at Pack Expo.
I'm joined by Richard Reardon from Antaris Group.
Hi there.
Hello, good morning.
Could you tell us what the company is doing on the show this year?
Sure, so this year, Antarius Vision Group is co-located with our food and beverage division and our pharmaceutical and life sciences division, and at at the show this year we're introducing some of our newer technologies on the food side and the beverage side, specific.
For container inspection and leak detection.
Brilliant.
And can you tell me a bit more about these products?
Sure, so we have a technology innovation winning device here called our all in one.
It is unique in the fact that it has the capability of combining several technologies into one physical platform.
The system that we have at the show has a laser spectroscopy-based leak detection system combined with a check wire.
And an X-ray foreign object system all in one compact footprint.
Brilliant.
And what would you say is different about doing business in America as a food and beverage packager compared to other parts of the world?
In the United States we have some regulatory requirements that are coming online that may not be found in other parts of the world, specifically related to food safety with the Food Safety Modernization Act and all.
With some traceability, and that is one area where we are uniquely positioned where we not only provide the inspection components online but we also supply the full capability to track the product through the manufacturing and out into the trade for purposes of consumer protection and recalls, things like that.
And what would you say are the main.
Challenges that you see in the US that don't exist in other places?
I think one of the challenges that we're seeing in the past year, year and a half has been in the personnel area.
We seem to see a lot of turnover at the plants, and plants are probably since COVID, they're struggling to get people on the lines.
And so one of the benefits of automated inspection.
It does give the plant the ability to not only automate the inspection but to have a more stable and repeatable process that's not so dependent on personnel.
And how do you deal with these personnel issues?
The plant would be able to put an inspection system in place where they used to staff it with people.
They can they can repurpose the people for other purposes on the line.
But we also give the plant the ability to make that inspection process more consistent, which provides them with additional protection for their brands.
So when you think about it, if we have a machine online that's doing something that a person used to do, the machine doesn't take breaks, it doesn't look away, it's always consistent, and that's one of the benefits.
It doesn't take a sick day.
That's one of the benefits for the machine inspection versus human.
Brilliant.
And what can we expect to see from Antaras in the coming year?
What we're really focused on now is not only the inspection but also bringing the track and trace and the digitalization component to this industry.
Got a tremendous history on the pharmaceutical and life sciences side, and we're seeing that as a requirement more and more on both the food and beverage, so we're going to be bringing the digitalization aspect of the inspection business to our customers.
Brilliant, thank you.
OK, thank you.
