Industry Update is proud to announce that Engilico has received our Packaging Solutions Company of the Year award.
“We are very honoured to receive this award,” said Peter Nijs, CTO. “We are proud we can stand out by our innovative solutions that are engineered and developed by listening to the requirements and needs of our customers. We would like to thank all our customers, partners and employees for their continued support.”
Offering industry-leading systems to inspect and monitor sealing processes, Engilico has expanded considerably during the last year, nearly doubling the number of employees in sales, marketing and application roles for its seal inspection product lines. Moreover, to better serve its American customers, Engilico established a new office in the US, and now has over 150 installations at top international companies.
Until now, Engilico has been focused on in-line seal inspection of flexible packaging, such as pouches, VFFS bags and flow wraps. This is achieved with the SealScope™ seal inspection solution, which detects leaking or open packages using mechanical sensors that are retrofitted to the sealing bars that close the package.
This solution has helped companies throughout the world to improve the quality of their packaging, and SealScope™ often receives glowing reviews from customers. A recent one said, “100% seal inspection of packaging is necessary to meet our customers’ quality requirements and SealScope™ gives us a high level of confidence that each product is inspected individually.”
To complement their existing solution, Engilico will soon release a new, vision-based solution for in-line seal inspection of rigid packages, such as trays, pots, or other thermoformed packages. Called HyperScope™, this is an innovative inspection solution that uses hyperspectral camera technology and detects seal contamination with much higher contrast than standard vision cameras, even when the foil is printed. Printed foils are today used by many producers as it enhances the perception of product quality, but these non-transparent foils are a challenge for standard visual inspection.
HyperScope’s hyperspectral cameras analyse reflected light in a much broader wavelength range than standard vision cameras, allowing for higher contrast. This means it can separate different materials such as fat, meat, oil, and water from plastic, allowing to detect contamination in the seal.
This brand new solution will considerably expand Engilico’s application range. “Today, almost any food producer applies rigid packaging to package meat, cheese, fish, salads, ready-meals etc.,” said Peter Nijs. “While Engilico mainly focused on inspection of flexible packaging, now we will be able to address a new application segment and new customers, thanks to HyperScope™. Also, the application possibilities of HyperScope™ reach further than only seal inspection. It can also be used for incoming goods inspection, to analyse product composition, to evaluate freshness or ripeness, to check for content presence, and more.”
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Engilico remained operational by putting measures in place, such as working from home, social distancing, and extra hygienic preventions. Although new customer visits drastically reduced due to travel restrictions, Engilico’s existing customers ordered extra systems, recognising the value of seal inspection and making sure they could continue to equip new or extra packaging lines. “Also, on the positive side, we were better able to focus on the development of new products and functionality,” explained Peter, something which is evident in the innovative new HyperScope™ which will be released in the coming month.
What’s more, although trade shows and events were cancelled due to the pandemic, Engilico shifted its efforts onto digital marketing, proactively organising information webinars, newsletters and YouTube movies. This helped to generate hundreds of new contacts in Engilico’s target industries, growing its LinkedIn followers from 70 to 1,000+ in the last year.
For more information on SealScope™ and HyperScope™, head to the website or get in touch using details below.
T +32 16 498 130
info@engilico.com
www.engilico.com