Key Technology has introduced product-specific infeed and collection conveyors for its new VERYX digital sorters. Designed to work together with VERYX belt-fed and chute-fed sorters as integrated systems, the vibratory shakers and belt conveyors embody the food processing equipment company’s expertise in both product handling and sorting. These conveying solutions, built for each product’s specific characteristics, maximize sorting performance to improve product quality and increase yields.
The infeed conveyors must optimize stabilization and separation of the product to the sorter. This creates a consistent feed through the sorter’s inspection and ejection zones, which ensures ultimate accuracy in detecting and sorting out foreign material (FM) and defective product while avoiding inadvertent removal of good product in the process. The sorter’s collection conveyors must create a soft landing and ease product deceleration to offer gentle handling and prevent damage to the product. Exactly how these objectives are best achieved depends on the conveyance properties of each product.
Based on years of experience testing and fine-tuning thousands of conveyors, Key’s new Application Matrix defines the ideal stroke, frequency, shape, slope, surface texture and other conveyor variables to match each product. For food processors that run multiple products on the same line, Key designs conveying solutions that offer the best performance across all the products with minimal adjustments needed at each changeover.
“The optimum infeed conveyor can improve a sorter’s performance significantly. We have improved digital sorting with our new VERYX sorters, and we are getting the most from these sophisticated systems by designing infeed and collection conveyors that best complement each application. With sorting and conveying under one roof, Key is able to deliver the ideal combined solution,” said Jim Ruff, general manager of the Integrated Solutions Group at Walla Walla, Washington, USA-headquartered Key Technology. “Thanks to our extensive knowledge base and the use of advanced dynamic modeling, the art and science of designing conveyors has gotten more scientific.”
From leafy greens that tend to stick to a conveyor or fly like a sail, peas that roll and ‘windrow,’ wet potato strips that stick and frozen potato strips that slide, Key’s Application Matrix considers the many characteristics of each product to help determine the conveying systems that will produce the best results.
About Key Technology, Inc.
An ISO-9001 certified company, Key manufactures digital sorters, conveyors, and other food processing equipment at its headquarters in Walla Walla, Washington, USA; Beusichem, the Netherlands; Hasselt, Belgium; and Redmond, Oregon, USA. The company offers customer demonstration and testing services at five locations including Walla Walla, Beusichem, and Hasselt as well as Sacramento, California, USA and Melbourne, Australia; and maintains a sales and service office in Santiago de Queretaro, Mexico.
Key’s product line will be in high profile at a number of upcoming trade shows, including the April 4-6 ProFood Tech in Chicago (Stand 1213) and the May 4-10 Interpack in Düsseldorf (Stand A08).
