Supply chain effects of utilizing non destructive quality inspection in food production

Sammanfattning: Reducing waste and increasing efficiency in food supply chains is important for a sustainable food production. Modified Atmosphered Packaging (MAP) is a method of increasing food durability that requires gas quality and potential gas leakage inspection. This inspection is often done by destructive methods such as puncturing the package with a needle. In addition, primarily only the first and last package in each batch are tested, with the packages in between assumed to be correctly packaged. As a result, production must halt to check that the batch's last tested product meets the quality requirements; if not, the entire batch must be reworked or discarded. This study examines the impact of utilizing non-destructive food inspection as a solution to the problem of discarding or reworking large amounts of finished products, as well as the inefficiencies that this entails. This study has identified the need to be able to measure each package as crucial. The limitations in capacity and flexibility due to the fact that food production needs to stop in order to carry out destructive tests have severe negative impacts on the food supply chain. This makes increasing production capacity and flexibility difficult without without increasing inventory levels or overproducing which in turn leads to inefficiency. The purpose of this study is to generate more knowledge about how waste and efficiency in food production is affected by non-destructive inspection and how production facilities can benefit from the technology in the best possible way. The study is delimited to examining MAP-packed food products and how the quality inspection of these products affects the food supply chain. A literature review, an examination of historical data from the case study company, and interviews with managers in various positions at two different production facilities were conducted to fulfill the purpose. This study confirms that the use of non-destructive inspection in food production increases flexibility, stability and capacity in food production. Consequently, this leads to a reduced food waste by minimizing overproduction, accumulating orders and the ability to produce several batch sizes without increasing lead times due to quality inspection. As a result, efficiency is significantly improved with non-destructive quality inspection. Furthermore, this provides opportunities to mitigate the bullwhip effects that can occur as a result of overproduction and waste by increased production planning. This led to recommendations for how food production can benefit from the technology, thus enhancing efficiency. The study provides a framework for how production facilities can benefit from the non-destructive quality inspection by batch size optimization, automating processes and reviewing service level's.