New Zealand-based Compac, a global specialist in fresh produce sorting technology and solutions, is hoping to break new ground with it’s next generation grading platform, Spectrim.
Fundamentals of the technology include powerful imaging, uniformity of lighting that minimises shadows and reflections thus ensuring illumination power and consistency, and sensors and cameras generating up to 500 images of every piece of produce at the highest clarity through a combination of superior lighting and high-quality optics.
“Spectrim is the most powerful industrial imaging platform introduced into the produce industry,” says Ken Moynihan, chief technical officer at Compac. “It leverages all our learnings from previous systems and developments in machine-vision systems from other industries.”
The optical grading platform, which has been developed over a six-year period, has been developed with long-term partnerships in mind, according to Compac’s marketing manager Nathan Soich. “At Compac, we want partners, not customers, who will be with us for the long haul,” he tells Eurofruit. “It is another step towards what we call a ‘lights out packhouse’ – one that minimises the cost of labour, and is ultimately a step towards eliminating the need for labour in the packhouse altogether.”
One of the key aspects of Spectrim’s next-generation set-up is the software that it utilises. It not only contains a number of enhancements such as Smartskin and Smartblobs but also includes new and more powerful grading algorithms which build a far more accurate 3D model of each piece of fruit, utilising the 500 images generated by the system.
“The software is incredibly sophisticated, it is a self-learning programme that picks up and identifies defects, and in time recognises these same defects in other pieces of fruit,” notes Soich.
And Mike Riley, chief executive at Compac, adds: “The problem is that technology companies often get caught up with their technology and what they can achieve, and they lose focus on what their customers actually want. This is why we are so customer-oriented and why we are in search of long-term partnerships that we can build on together.”
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