Test Equipment and Measurement Instrument Blog

"To live is to choose. But to choose well, you must know who you are and what you stand for, where you want to go and why you want to get there." Kofi Annan, former Secretary- General of the United Nations & Nobel Peace Prize Winner

The amount of moisture in a product can affect various quality components, as well as transactions based on weight. When dealing in bulk shipments, even the smallest errors can add up to large profit losses over time.

We have just published an ebook called "A Guide To Finding An Accurate and Reliable Moisture Meter" Below is an excerpt from the book which covers the questions you need to ask your team and the supplier to make an informed decision.

Henry Ford is quoted as saying, “Don’t find fault, find a remedy.” Product development, quality assurance and quality control specialists are trained to identify faults, ensuring the product meets both internal and external standards. While a myriad of factors can affect product quality, you would be hard pressed to find one that has as large a role as moisture in creating many of these ‘faults.’ But what is the remedy?  A moisture meter, the right moisture meter!

As you seek to optimize production, there are obvious operational costs where efficiency must be assessed. However, evaluating rising labor, fuel, freight and materials costs is likely to reveal resources that have already been stretched to the max through unrelenting improvements to efficiency. Additionally, the value of purchasing a new instrument, particularly when the models in use are operating properly, may be overlooked by you and your team.

Last week we discussed some of the highlights of our handheld NIR moisture meter, the KJT130. It’s portability makes it a favorite among field specialists and manufacturers who need instant results in the midst of their processing lines. However, for those in a laboratory setting seeking high level quality assurance/quality control measurements we’d like to introduce the KJT230 Advanced Desktop Moisture Analyzer, it’s the high caliber, one touch instrument from our NIR moisture meter family.

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.

Whether your business is in the food, pharmaceutical, pulp and paper, personal care or chemical industry, your company’s success depends on developing protocols that produce replicable, high quality results.