OEM NIR spectrometers: the plant builder keeps full control

A plant builder for the food and beverage industry wanted to help its customers capture critical process parameters as early as possible. The goal: maximize yield and quality. Moisture and composition were to be measured directly in the product stream and fed into the control system, so deviations could be corrected while the batch is still running. All of this under its own brand, with its own calibration models and its own service.

The catch: developing a spectrometer in-house would have taken years and required expertise in optics, detector technology and chemometrics that the company did not have. A third-party stand-alone analyzer, on the other hand, would have brought its own software, its own interfaces and someone else's service into the plant. Ownership of the calibration and of the customer relationship would have slipped out of its hands.

Two more factors raised the bar. The products are powders, so the sensor heads would sit in dust Ex zones and had to be ATEX/IECEx certified. And the measurement had to be fully integrated: one machine, one control system, one user interface, with reliable results despite dust, vibration and changing production conditions.

Instead of developing in-house, our customer chose an OEM partner for the measurement technology. After extensive testing, the choice fell on Polytec and on customized versions of our multi-point PAS and single-point PCS NIR spectrometers. Together, we designed the measurement concept: spectral specifications, number and position of measurement points, sensor head types, interfaces to the control system and the installation conditions at each measurement point.

The spectrometer sits in a protected area, with fiber-optic cables leading to compact sensor heads right at the product stream. In multi-point setups, one spectrometer serves several measurement points across several process steps. For the dust Ex zones in the powder processes, Polytec supplied ATEX/IECEx-certified sensor heads together with the explosion protection know-how.

• Control system integration: measured values go straight into the plant control system
• Open software access: our customer maintains its own calibration models and applications
• Private labeling: housing, user interface and labeling in the plant builder's design

Since 2022, our customer has supplied its own inline NIR system in series, with more than 500 measurement points in the field (as of 2026). The process knowledge stays with the plant builder, the NIR technology comes from Polytec as a long-term partner for series production and support.

For the plant builder:

• Its own NIR analyzer in the portfolio, without a spectrometer development program
• Shorter, more predictable time to market with lower technical risk
• Full ownership of calibration, brand and applications

For the food producers running the lines:

• Deviations detected while the batch is still running, directly in the plant control system
• One system and one point of contact for machine and measurement

Want to offer NIR analysis under your own brand? Let's talk about your project.