By its very nature, whisky is a premium product; one which demands a high-end, high-performance bottle that can be safely stored for years, often decades.
After discovering a potential quality issue with one batch of its whisky bottles, one manufacturer identified 4,000 pallets of stock – over 3 million bottles – which required reworking in under 10 weeks.
While weighing up the costs of manual inspection – in time, labour, storage and customer delays – against destroying the whole batch, the company asked Bytronic Vision Automation to come up with an automated solution to its urgent rework challenge.
The large-scale project required quality control systems that could be rolled out to more than 50 interconnected production lines over multiple sites.
Previously, these products were checked by manual inspections; a slow, costly and inaccurate approach.
Because of the nature of the products, it was vital that labelling on allergens, health and safety and consumer rights for each product and region was accurate, without fail.
Manual inspections or less sophisticated systems could easily miss subtle differences between products, such as language differences or incomplete or inaccurate packing.
Due to the nature of the production process – with components loaded in stacks that obscure the labelling – the tubs and lids could not be checked before assembly without adding costly delays. Instead, they must be checked in the final moments before the lids and tubs are combined on the line.
When designing our solution, it was important that we delivered the fastest, most reliable and cost-effective way to spot labelling issues, in an automated system. One option – using artwork codes printed on each component – is often small and tricky to read. Barcodes can’t be relied on either, because often seasonal product variations use the same codes.
We needed to deliver an automated solution that would overcome these challenges, checking every pack before assembly, without causing delays. So we designed and installed a series of bespoke machine vision systems to carry out instant visual inspections of every component, milliseconds before the lids are applied to the tubs.
By combining high-resolution optical cameras, advanced pattern detection, image recognition software and programming, our systems identify the graphics on each tub in a little as 100ms, using machine learning to identify that every lid and tub are a match in the split-second before assembly.
If a mismatch is detected, the incoming lid is quickly rejected and replaced with the correct design.
Thanks to the Bytronic technology, the automated line could check 5 bottles every second, and the whole 4,000 pallets were inspected within 10 weeks
3 million bottles were checked and sorted into ‘good’ or ‘bad’, and roughly 60 per cent were saved from the bin. That’s nearly 2 million premium bottles that would have otherwise been smashed up, reformed and recycled needlessly, costing money, time and emissions.
On-site quality product manager: “The kit has done everything we needed it to, and more – and accurately too. Trials can often be tricky, but I was really pleasantly surprised by the accuracy and repeatability of the equipment.
“The Bytronic team were great – any time we had questions, we could ask them remotely and they would log on to see what was happening in a matter of minutes. We never had any issues, and they never let bad glass get onto a pallet.”
Bytronic is a 100% customer-centric engineering technology solution provider. We work with multiple OEM and line-builder organisations.
Our advantage is that we approach solution design to solve customer challenges. Our goal is optimum productivity; future-proofed manufacturing.
Read more about our innovation and partnering approach.