GERMANY – Packaging and bottling machine manufacturer Krones has developed the 360° closure inspection unit to meet more stringent quality standards, keep pace with innovations like tethered caps and lightweight designs, and simultaneously upgrade existing methods.
This new unit combines a precisely defined lighting system with a high-resolution camera, allowing it to measure the positions of a bottle’s closure and neck finish in three-dimensional space.
It determines their relative position to each other with an accuracy ten times higher than its predecessor, enabling ultra-precise measurements down to 20 micrometers or smaller, even with customary container height tolerances or slightly angled bottlenecks.
This ensures leakproof integrity for all containers, reducing the need for time-consuming manual lab testing where only random checks are performed.
The 360° closure inspection unit provides full-coverage all-around inspection, checking closures for presence, correct color and placement (neither skewed nor too high), damage, jammed breakaway bands, and torn perforations.
“In contrast to previous solutions, sizeable beads of water don’t pose any problems for the 360° inspector. Therefore, bottlers can use a modular blower, which takes up much less space and is more hygienic and economical,” explains Stefan Piana, head of Inspection and Monitoring Technology at Krones.
“The unit’s selectivity is sufficiently high to ensure that virtually no faultless containers are tagged as defective.”
Despite its significantly reduced dimensions, the inspector also includes the TopCheck feature for inspecting the closure’s logo.
The new technology also enables efficient inspection of bottles for the correct placement of tethered caps, which will be mandatory in Germany from July 2024 to reduce plastic littering.
The unit checks that the perforation at the breakaway band and the twist-and-clip mechanism, which keeps the lid out of the way while consumers drink from the bottle, are in perfect condition.
The 360° closure inspector can check the correct position of plastic closures and crowns.
It detects typical errors like skewed crowns or drawn-in skirts. It offers full-coverage in-process monitoring by precisely measuring each crown’s diameter, eliminating the need for manual reference-gauge tests in the lab.
Additionally, the unit reliably detects any leaks or hairline cracks in the bottle’s neck finish by evaluating any foam leaking.
The new inspector reduces manual lab work and offers the added benefit of testing and assessing closures’ leakproof integrity, thus enhancing product quality.
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