ONEXIA

The V31 vision machine in the onsite Applications Center. Here, customers can send in test products to receive a test report of the system’s performance and capability prior to purchase.

look for companies who are also leaders in their markets and where their products complement or help to round out our offerings.”

Key acquisitions that have formed the Product Inspection division to date include: • Hi-Speed, founded in 1953 and acquired by Toledo Scale in 1981, a maker of checkweighers. • Safeline, a maker of metal detectors founded in 1989, acquired by Mettler Toledo in 1997. • For vision inspection, CI-Vision, founded in the late 1970’s, was acquired by Mettler Toledo in 2009. • And PCE, founded in 1989, was acquired by Mettler Toledo in 2011, adding comprehensive track and trace with serialization and aggregation software to the company’s product portfolio.

According to Zeng, the previous general manager of the Product Inspection group, Viggo Nielsen, had the vision of moving all of the machines and technologies into one place in order to utilize all of the brands’ resources. Nielsen made that vision a reality in 2018 by combining the business units, which previously were spread out in three locations, to a newly constructed 270,000 sq. ft., state-of-the-art facility in the Lutz, FL location. The next year, Nielsen retired and Margie Custin took over as general manager of the Market Organization (sales, service, and marketing) for Mettler Toledo Product Inspection.

Learn more about Mettler Toledo Product Inspection’s move to Lutz, FL, and the appointment of Margie Custin. Go to: oemgo.to/custin

By consolidating operations the company is able to streamline customer service across metal detection, X-ray inspection, checkweighing, machine vision, and track and trace/serialization capabilities. This also increases efficiency with all machines being assembled in the same production location, as well as parts and procurement engineering.

And further innovating on these acquisitions, Mettler Toledo was the first to invent digital metal detectors, Zeng says, noting the company then added foreign material detection for non-metal contaminants in addition to metal contaminants with X-ray technology, eventually becoming the largest X-ray machine producer for the food industry. Concerns about food safety have grown over the last decade and as product inspection is the mainstream method of assuring food safety, Mettler Toledo has utilized its resources to “grasp the opportunity and grow with it,” he says.

To that end, the company dedicates itself as a resource to its customers. It sends food safety advisors to customer sites, participates in industry seminars, joins food safety associations, and closely monitors the Food and Drug Administration to keep up with the latest in food safety regulations.

Benefits of Lean application and vFATs

As much as the company focuses externally on customer service, it also keeps internal operations at peak performance. The Florida facility runs on Lean manufacturing design principles, Zeng says, which allows for more efficient workflow by only keeping key personnel on the work floor for quick response times and building core components on site.

“Mettler Toledo has been incorporating Lean for many years. Our entire production process is set up on the principle of Lean, from how raw material is ordered and processed, to how equipment flows through the plant,” says Zeng.

The company has participated in multiple Five S programs to learn lean methodologies, applying the knowledge gained to all operations, from sales to production. Key performance indicators (KPIs) are used in all departments with progress information available to employees across the facility.

Zeng explains that early on in the application of Lean principles, Mettler Toledo would hire consultants to come and train the employees and through that process developed its own team of experts to train internally.

Furthermore, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there are customer-facing processes, like factory acceptance tests (FAT), that have evolved with virtual technology. The company sets up professional cameras connected to Microsoft Teams or Zoom inside what it calls an “FAT room,” where machines are moved to create a more controlled environment. Multiple such rooms are inside the Florida facility in order to perform upwards of three virtual FATs (vFATs) per day. The vFATs have been so successful and efficient that the company will continue to offer them as an option if customers prefer that method in the future.

To that end, the company not only applies this virtual environment to FATs, but also to inspection and product testing. Customers will send product to Mettler Toledo which is tested on the machines the customers are looking into—which they witness virtually—and then sent back with a report that shows the detection specifications, Zeng says.

Customers are a priority

Zeng explains that the Product Inspection group’s innovative drive is to improve customer workflows and make results more precise and reliable, to simplify user interaction, and to support customers’ regulatory needs. To emphasize the importance of the customer experience, Zeng notes that the service department is larger than the sales department. The local service has been set up so that it can reach out to any of its end users in driving distance, sending out field engineers—when COVID-19 restrictions and regulations allow—along with 24/7 telephone technical support.

The field engineers are trained by senior engineers, in classrooms by SMEs, and through self-learning via a webbased learning portal. The company also provides customer training on site through the field engineers as well as in its training center at the production facility conducted by service technicians. These services are offered in both English and Spanish.

When visiting a plant in person is not an option to maintain equipment, the company has a remote monitoring system in place to diagnose the machines and allow technicians to visually check if the machines are working at optimum level. This has expanded Mettler Toledo’s aftermarket services and grown its installation base, allowing the company to fix issues with the machines in a shorter timeframe to increase uptime.

The X33 (le ) and X36 (right) X-ray Inspection Systems in one of five factory acceptance test rooms at the Lutz facility. Customers are able to witness and perform tests of their machines prior to shipment.