What you can't see and measure, you can't manage

Integrating identification and inspection processes gives:

• Better visibility into the packaging area, which was previously a black hole.
• An overall picture of what is happening on the production line - such as rejects per hour rates in real time - via integrated dashboards.
• The ability to streamline the process, then pinpoint and manage bottlenecks.
• The ability to link a batch of products to rejects.
• A simplified inspection and identification process: barcodes can be verified against specifications, such as labels, product filled, packaging elements weights.

Problem: Overweight strawberry punnets are causing fresh produce packer to lose profits.

Solution: Vision, inspection and ID can be integrated so that a best-before date can be coded online onto pre-printed labels (which already have the brand and weight) for strawberry punnets. Via checkweighing, any products over the specified weight will be rejected. While not much in individual punnets, this saving quickly adds up over just one week, saving profits.

Benefits: better visibility into the packaging area, which was previously a black hole; simplified inspection and identification process.

Problem: Spillages from yoghurt tubs when stacked, probably due to ill-fitting foil lids.

Solution: A vision system integrated with ID package code management software that has dashboards will show the exact rejects per hour rates in real time. Dashboards will show the overall number of yoghurt lids applied, as well as the ‘good’ (well-sealed) and ‘bad’ (not properly sealed) lids. An integrated vision-ID system will also enable operators to pinpoint and manage bottlenecks: reports will show if a particular machine has been causing downtime, so a decision can be made to replace it and remove the production-line bottleneck. Similarly, the origin of problem batches can be analysed.

Benefits: An overall picture of what is happening on the production line; ability to streamline the process, then pinpoint and manage bottlenecks; ability to link a batch of products to rejects.

Problem: Wrong product is in the tub; barcode is not correct for that product; and/or not scannable.

Solution: A vision system simplifies the inspection and ID process: cameras in the vision system are linked with package code management software; together they verify the barcode against specifications for that product, and also verify the barcode is scannable. Products in the wrong tubs set off an alert and stop the line, allowing operators to quickly fix the problem. This would only be possible manually at very slow speeds and would therefore create a bottleneck. Incorrect barcodes will also be automatically rejected.

Benefits: Simplifying the inspection and identification process.