Key Technology, a member of Duravant’s food sorting and handling solutions group, has introduced the COMPASS optical sorter for individually quick frozen (IQF) products such as fruits, vegetables, seafood, poultry and meat. COMPASS is designed to identify and remove foreign material (FM) and product defects to protect food safety and final product quality. The company says that with simplified operation, cleaning and maintenance, COMPASS is the easiest-to-use optical sorter on the market while offering a quick return on investment.
 
"On IQF production lines, processors often handle dozens of different products and change over several times a day. Optical sorters for these applications require a great degree of flexibility and must maintain high accuracy despite significant product changes,” says Jack Lee, Duravant group president - food sorting and handling solutions. “COMPASS’s intuitive user interface and straightforward recipe-driven programming means even entry-level workers with no technical background can easily operate this system to achieve peak performance.”
 
COMPASS is can be used for whole products, slices, dices and crumbles as well as product mixes. Utilizing in-air inspection, this chute-fed sorter "sees" all sides of the product with no reported blind spots. It detects and rejects plastic, glass, metal, stones and other FM including extraneous vegetable matter (EVM) like leaves and toxic weeds. Processor-specified product defects are also removed from the line with virtually no false rejects. When inspecting product mixes, COMPASS can be programmed to ensure the ingredients are correctly proportioned.
 
An ergonomic user interface resembles smart devices for effortless navigation. Engineered from the ground up to maximize sanitation while simplifying cleaning and maintenance requirements, COMPASS features an open, washdown-compatible design with easy access for personnel.
 
Recipe-driven programming is there to ensure consistent sort performance on every product run, which is especially valuable in high-changeover applications. Operators can create new recipes for new products or adjust existing recipes to accommodate product changes without assistance from an application engineer or Key service technician.
 
COMPASS features a modular design and is available in multiple sizes to satisfy a wide range of customer applications and capacity requirements. Object-based recognition facilitates sophisticated shape sorting algorithms, while intelligent ejection maximizes sort accuracy and minimizes false rejects.
 
Every COMPASS is equipped with Key Discovery, a suite of data analytics and reporting software that enables the sorter to collect, analyze and share data about every object flowing through the system. Key Discovery can reveal patterns and trends that give processors valuable insights into their operations.