Seals and pouches
Open seals, product in the seam, or a channel in a pouch. See Food and the medical device pouch seal.
Catch bad packs before the case packer.
Fill, seal, cap, count, placement and damage, checked on every pack, with a reject timed to the pack and confirmed when it fires.
Problems
What this station catches.
Fill level
Packs and bottles under- or over-filled. See Food and Beverage.
Count and missing items
Short packs, cases, and kits. See Food, Packaging and Medical devices.
Label placement (360°)
Missing, skewed or wrinkled labels. See Beverage.
Containers
Cracked or dirty empties. See Beverage.
Product appearance
Shape, color, breakage, bloom, and enrobing. See Food.
How it works
How the station checks.
Single-camera station
Faults that show from one side: fill, seal, presence, count.
Three-camera station
Faults that can be on any side: wrapped labels, caps, cosmetic marks.
A timed, confirmed reject
The reject is timed to the part and confirmed when it fires.
A record of every reject
Every reject logged with image and lot. See Traceability.
Pass or fail
From picture to reject.
01
Capture
A photo eye or encoder triggers the camera, and a short strobe freezes the moving pack. Filters even out brightness and noise when the check needs it.
02
Locate
The software finds the pack, so the checks land in the right place on a pack that arrives turned or off center.
03
Measure
Pixels become numbers: fill height, piece count, seal width, the size of a mark.
04
Decide
Each number is compared with limits set from real good and bad samples. A fail fires the reject when that unit reaches it, and the image and reason are saved.
05
Rules or deep learning
Rule-based tools suit measurements, counts, and presence, and each reject traces to a limit. Deep learning suits faults that vary in look, such as cosmetic marks and wrinkles, and trains on many labeled pictures. Many stations use both. See How machine vision works.
Handed over at site acceptance.
- Functional specification
- Electrical drawings and I/O list
- Commented PLC and vision program
- Site acceptance test
- Operator and maintenance training
- IQ/OQ/PQ support documents