Founded in 2014 and building on more than 150 years of independent community milling heritage, Ardent Mills is the largest grain milling company in the U.S. After all that time, it remains a dedicated values-based, people-first company. At the same time, the supplier embraces advanced technology, such as Fortress Technology’s metal detectors. According to the company, three of Ardent’s 40+ mills are now fully embracing Halo Automatic Testing on packaging lines, as well as utilizing Contact 4.0 reporting software for enhanced quality control and networked traceability.

Background

Formed through a joint venture of ConAgra Foods, Cargill and CHS, the company’s rich milling history intrinsically links back to the longstanding legacies of each community mill, facility and its deep connections to local growers. 

With an expansive national footprint of over 40 locations producing flour, quinoa and pulses, organic and gluten-free products, Ardent Mills continues to support thousands of local jobs and inject billions of dollars into local economies. How does a company of this scale ensure that every aspect of its operations remain true to its quality standards and nutrition-driven grassroots partnerships?  

Activating the technologies pre-installed on existing Fortress metal detectors reportedly has proven to be an efficiency and safety gamechanger for many of Ardent Mills’ quality managers. Hastings, MN; Ogden, UT; and Saginaw, TX are among the latest of Ardent’s mills to switch full time to automatic testing and digital reporting. As word spreads throughout the company (which operates across the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico) Ardent Mills is considering that more sites could make the switch to these efficient digitized food safety tools, reports Packaging Engineer Manvine Bharj. Bharj and her team process about 22.4 million bags of packed milled product every year. Over the last 12 months, Bharj, supported by the Fortress service team, set up automatic testing on six inline conveyor packaging lines to enhance safety and efficiency. 

Safety first

Bharj reports that to keep the company values of trust, serving, simplicity and safety in mind, automated tools like Halo and Contact 4.0 proactively prevent issues for our team members and help keep them safe, all while improving customer service and overall food safety. At the mills that ship packed product direct to retailers and commercial bakeries, Ardent implements an end-of-line HACCP testing point, just before palletizing. “We intentionally test our inspection equipment more often than our customers’ conformance requirements stipulate, as it provides extra quality assurance and fills us with confidence that our products are the safest they can be,” notes Bharj.

Rather than relying on operators to perform, document and submit inspection tests, the Fortress Halo Automatic Testing solution independently tests all three metals in the exact geometric center of the Stealth metal detector apertures. Replicating this test manually is extremely challenging to do accurately, reports Fortress Service Manager Ryan Ramdass. “It would require placing a test sample in the exact middle of each grain bag, passing this through the metal detector, removing it from the line, opening the packaging and removing the test sample, and inspecting it again. Testing all three metals, every two hours is a lot of heavy lifting, sifting, repacking and potential waste,” emphasizes Ramdass. 

To solve this issue, Halo Automatic Testing reportedly mimics the disturbance caused by a test contaminant calibrated to the precise size, metal type and speed that product bags pass through the metal detector aperture. It makes the process much more efficient for colleagues in the three facilities utilizing Halo Automatic Testing, enabling them to focus on more productive tasks, reports Bharj. Additionally, automatic testing significantly improves the reliability, quality and accuracy of every test, as they are programmed for a specific time, and cannot be carried out retrospectively. 

In order to distinguish between a real metal detection reject and when a Halo test is being performed, Ardent Mills requested one customization: a blue light system to alert operators when a test is running. This feature alone has made a huge impact on labor demands and potential product waste, highlights Manvine. “Without this blue light we would potentially have to sift and rework every 50lb test sack assuming it was contaminated, or reject and waste it. That could have added up to re-inspecting 12 sacks, 600lbs of flour, per line, every shift,” flags Bharj. The blue light modification is now being introduced on all Fortress metal detectors installed with Halo.

Return on investment

The Ardent Mills team estimates that before Halo, every test could take between 10 and 15 minutes; this required significant manual intervention and inefficient machine downtime while operators removed test packs from the line. Now, each production line only stops if the metal detector performance test or reject check fails. To assist with audit traceability, each individual metal detector automatically logs all of the data from each test, which can be extracted by USB and reviewed using Contact Reporter software, providing a reliable machine performance and due diligence audit trail. 

The resulting operational savings have been rapid, the company reports. Bharj estimates the ROI on the original Stealth Metal Detector investment has been achieved in six months or less. “Halo provides the perfect blend of inspection continuity, contaminant detection, machine performance and safety,” she adds.

Smart reporting 

The three Ardent Mills sites have also deployed Fortress Technology’s Contact 4.0 networked data capture package. Rather than documenting everything on paper, Contact 4.0 automates the entire data logging process. This streamlines traceability for quality assurance managers and helps to remove the risk of human error. Additionally, it prompts operators to test inspection equipment. 

“Our quality managers loved Contact 4.0 as soon as it was implemented. As a networked system, it’s so easy to go into the centralized browser, select and email shift reports and view when tests were performed. Having this complete oversight allows them to immediately address issues and ensure the inspection process doesn’t cause a bottleneck,” exalts Bharj.

With many Ardent Mills sites moving towards paper-lite processes, automating QA documentation is a crucial step in maximizing both equipment and operator efficiency. This approach alleviates the pressure on staff to manually document everything and ensure legibility. As a web-based networked system, it allows operators to monitor multiple metal detectors. 

“Contact 4.0’s cohesive reporting system allows authorized employees to troubleshoot performance issues remotely. Reports can be configured and emailed daily, per shift or weekly. Test failure, fault or non-conformity events can trigger an automatic email alert, detailing when an event occurred on a specific machine,” explains Ramdass.

Transformation

Adoption of Halo and Contact 4.0 is just one example of how Ardent Mills is leveraging digital production data to support their high safety standards, emphasizes Bharj. “Trusting the capabilities takes time. However, Ryan and the Fortress team have been incredibly helpful in collaborating with us to ensure these systems are tailored to Ardent Mills' needs, rather than following a cookie-cutter approach,” she comments. 

With more facilities eager to switch and activate similar efficiency-enhancing programs, the packaging engineer anticipates ongoing integration projects. Citing real-time information as being the enabler for smarter decision making, Bharj believes that rolling out new technology also ignites curiosity and drives operators to do even better. “Service technician Julius Tongohan was especially helpful. While updating the software at each site he also took the time to educate team members on how the systems work and suggested other solutions to help our systems work better. This additional knowledge about the Fortress metal detectors has enabled the teams to fix issues themselves rather than calling out a service engineer. From this enhanced understanding of the machines, we are seeing this knowledge being applied to reduce good product wastage.”

Acquiring specialist assets remains a key part of Ardent’s safety strategy affirms Bharj. “Integrating these into our Ardent Mills family is exciting as it strengthens our capabilities and ensures that we continue to provide safe, nutritious solutions to our customers and communities,” ends Bharj. 

Related: Ardent Mills announces two new leadership hires