Feb 27, 2018TOMRA wins silver medal at the International FoodTec award
TOMRA’s user interface TOMRA ACT has been named a silver winner in the 2018 International FoodTec Award, organized by the DLG (German Agricultural Society).
“TOMRA ACT is designed to make sorting adjustments simple and predictable for the user or operator, enabling optimized control,” the company wrote. “This is achieved by changing the way the defect and product features are set up. Each user can define their own sorting criteria and apply customized naming conventions based on these criteria.”
The software application is available on all of TOMRA’s new food sorting machines.
“The aim was to create a system that keeps even a complicated sorting task as simple as possible. I think we have met, and possibly exceeded, that objective. Historically, the sorter’s user interface focused on the machine’s technology, and it was confusing and difficult to use,” said John McGloughlin, head of innovation, strategy and design at TOMRA Sorting Food. “TOMRA ACT is continually used and tested on working client sites in Europe and the U.S., providing iterative design learning that feeds back into the development process.”
This new interface provides the sorter as a device for separating different quality products into separate streams and gives the operator immediate feedback on the behaviour of the machine, TOMRA wrote. Certain criteria of product quality are bundled and represented by simple blocks. The criteria blocks show relative real-time data about these criteria within the process, and by simply touching the on-screen criteria block, the operator can adjust important parameters via the sort criteria. These criteria describe the product in the streams, not the features or functions of the machine.
The award ceremony will take place March 20 at Anuga FoodTec in Cologne.
