Test Equipment and Measurement Instrument Blog

As the voice of Kett on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, I am familiar with our products, but have had little opportunity to interact with our customers. So, John Bogart, Kett’s CEO, invited me to find out more at my first tradeshow. I had no idea what to expect as I boarded the plane heading from Denver to Chicago to join John Bogart, our Japanese colleagues and several thousand analytical chemists at Pittcon14.

The city that launched the boon of American industrial optimism with the historical Chicago World’s Fair, is set to host the largest annual global conference dedicated to laboratory equipment and instrumentation. Early March 18,000 laboratory scientists will converge in Chicago to attend the Pittsburgh Conference on Analytical Chemistry and Applied Spectroscopy, or Pittcon 2014.

The International Baking Industry Expo, known simply as the Baking Expo markets itself as “North America’s largest, most comprehensive trade event of the year.” With 20,000 grain and flour professionals, baked goods manufacturers, packaging experts, and cupcake shop owners in attendance, we decided to jump into the mix (so to speak) this year October 6th- 9th in Las Vegas, Nevada. 

This month, we’ve been sharing the benefits of two of our most popular instruments in the NIR spectrometer family, the KJT130 and KJT230 moisture meters. While moisture testing is one of the top ways to ensure product quality across the board, this week we’ll be discussing the cousin of the moisture analyzers, the KJT270 NIR Composition Analyzer. The KJT270 is available as a larger fiber optic KJT270F and smaller desktop KJT270. Listed below are five key reasons customers love these instruments. 

R&D, quality control and quality analysis department laboratories are rife with a variety of spectrometers. These test instruments improve the bottom line of manufacturing companies, ensuring products meet standard market parameters with minimal waste. While a variety of instruments utilize infrared spectroscopy, near- infrared (NIR) spectroscopy is specifically useful in analyzing bulk materials, often with no sample preparation.

NIR test equipment has evolved over the past decade to be used in a wide variety of analysis applications. Currently, these spectrometers are employed across nearly all manufacturing lines, measuring everything from pharmaceuticals to food and beverages, and spanning the chemical, beauty, packaging, coating, medical supply and agricultural industries. Just one spectrometer can be used to confirm the state and quality of bulk materials or raw ingredients, assess intermediate products in a processing line and confirm that final goods are ready to meet consumers’ expectations.

Traditionally, samples are brought to the lab, where these high-tech machines stand ready. However, walking a sample from the field, stockroom or factory line is time-consuming, prohibited to a limited size and shape of the sample, and introduces unwanted variables. In response to these limitations, we’ve designed portable spectrometers, like the KJT130 moisture meter, to meet the real needs of QA, QC and R&D specialists.

Here’s why we believe operations or development teams would be hard pressed to find a better investment.

Discovering new spices and recipes, sampling new foods, and taking home delicious new recipe ideas is all part of the enjoyment of IFT - we should know, we've been doing this for over 15 years.

Have you ever been frustrated at the end of the food production process to discover that the final product does not meet specifications?  Or what about the time involved in the analysis to get consistent and accurate measurements to ensure a quality product?