The food manufacturing industry relies heavily on frontline workers on the production floor. If something goes wrong, they’re the first to know—and the first to take action. I recently worked with a new FlexXray customer following a foreign material incident at their facility, noticed thanks to the due diligence of their production team.
This customer is a contract manufacturer of hand lotions and body creams. One of their filling machines’ pipelines had a screen missing, and our customer knew they had an issue: this part was somewhere in their product (body wash), but they didn’t know exactly where. Without an in-line metal detector at their facility, they weren’t able to locate the contaminant internally.
Employees on the floor of the production facility immediately brought the problem to the Director of Quality’s attention and asked what they needed to do. The Director of Quality, thankful to be notified of the issue, took everyone onto the floor and recognized those workers who noticed something went wrong and took action. To keep the final product safe, our customer followed suit — sending the product to FlexXray.
We turned this project around in one week from the time we received a sample to the time the inspection was completed. The Director of Quality and I met at our facility and monitored the inspection process so that they could take all safe product back right away.
The product, packaged in cases, had to be removed for inspection. In total, FlexXray performed X-ray inspection on 1,534 cases (18,396 bottles) and found two pieces of the metal screen, 2 mm in diameter. After inspection, we repackaged all of the product for our customer to get it back into commerce.
FlexXray always promises a quick turnaround and reliable results, which is why this customer chose us after an internet search for third-party inspection providers. While this isn’t a recurring issue, our customer was pleased to know they’re sending safe product to market—and if a foreign material incident occurs in the future, they know who to call.
“FlexXray treated us like their #1 customer. The place and people’s knowledge of the process was impressive, and the process they used left no doubt in my mind that the finished product was high quality and safe for the consumer.”
– Customer Representative
Rather than take a chance on sending contaminated product to market, our customer went the extra mile for their end customers to ensure they received a safe product. Don’t ignore the issue of foreign material contamination. Call FlexXray.
