Automated Quality Assurance.

The article features quality assurance devices used for assessing the quality of grains and grain products. A scanner-based image analysis system, NoodleScan was developed for assessing visual characteristics of flour and Asian noodles. It discriminates and quantifies the degree of bran contamination and its impact on noodle appearance. It is of particular importance to noodle manufacturers because it enables them to customize their quality control practices to meet the demands of their market niche. TrueGrade, a similar system from Hinz Automation, was developed for the assessment of visual characteristics of pulse grains. The device determines color grade and size distribution and allows user-selectable sieve combinations for computing size distributions.