DEXA lamb eating quality and supply chain grading - DEXA live- Phase 2

Summary

​Meat is one of Australia's biggest exports, and therefore a large part of the economy is supported by the meat value chain. In order to support effective decision making, for both the processor and producer in the lamb industry, the grading of meat will benefit from objective rather than subjective assessment.
Stage 1 research used DEXA hardware installed in a plant to scan over 600 animals and conduct bone and CT scanning to determine if and what relationship exists for lean meat yield (LMY) analysis in Australian lamb carcases. Results from that work confirmed a relationship and has developed an algorithm that can now be applied to support a commercial system.
This project (DEXA Live phase 2) put in place a system that enables Lean, Fat and Bone percentage data calculated using the DEXA algorithm implemented in DEXA live phase 1 to be integrated into the process chain. This project involved
a) implementing hardware to enable data-sets to be stored for an extended time;
b) hardware to ensure that carcases are presented to the DEXA correctly (and hence the integrity of the LMY data);
c) integrate an RFID scanner onto the DEXA machine to enable data captured to be integrated into the rest-of-plant process; and,
d) a user interface to enable stored data to be queried in relation to time/batch/flock/run.
Measurements will be captured and stored in real-time and integrated into a database that will have the ability to be interrogated over the corporate network or ultimately, with additional work, linked into an industry database.
As part of this project an RFID scanner was implemented to read test RFID hooks supplied by the site for the trial and software developed. RFID assists to link/store carcase IDs with captured images and calculated results such that, in future, measurements will have the ability to be related retrospectively to additional measured data within the plant and ultimately to livestock supply and origin. A verification step was undertaken to ensure that measured data is being attributed to the correct animal ID numbers and that the automated primal and middle cutting system are not adversely effected by the use of DEXA hardware.
At the completion of this project the site will have the ability to query a Scott constructed database and extract Lean%, Fat%, Bone% and carcase hook ID (as well as a number of other calculated metrics around cut lines, specifications and production statistics). Results from this project will give the processor the ability to implement a number of business rules and form a structure that can feed data back to industry managed databases and livestock suppliers.
Note that this project is a continuation of and is connected to phase 1 (project V.RDP.2010) and therefore tasks between the projects are linked.