Vision system helps packaging manufacturer freshen up its act

A fast-growing food packaging manufacturer is the latest business to box clever and benefit from the SAM Project’s electronics and industry 4.0 support.

The experts at SAM recently worked with a North East packaging specialist to help the company understand how electronics technology could improve product quality and eliminate manual visual checks which was adversely affecting their manufacturing line.

After visiting our state-of-the-art test factory at the University of Sunderland, the company – which supplies packaging to a major blue-chip client – was able to trial technologies such as Portable Monitoring Systems and a Vision Systems to understand how they could benefit their production process.

The goal was to eliminate faulty ‘black-spots’ items from its assembly line of transparent packaging, with the end-goal of increasing product quality and output, making the company’s operations more sustainable and profitable.

Working with Richard Eynon, SAM’s Industry 4.0 and Electronics Specialist, the company was able to achieve its goals after being introduced to a Vision System (Balluff), which helped it meet the ever-increasing requirements for maximum quality and greater flexibility within modern production plants.

This new quality checking process – through the implementation of a Vision System – has since resulted in the company eliminating almost every transparent container with inclusions from its production lines.

Richard said: “Each and every company that engages with the SAM Project has a unique challenge, be it improving quality, reducing lead-times or slashing costs and this client was no different”.

“Working with a blue-chip client, the company has to ensure the products it supplies meet the most stringent of standards, placing a huge strain on the company’s quality control teams and leading to heavy lead-times during periods of heavy production”.

“However, after sitting down with the company, we were able to identify how a Vision System was able to detect an issue and subsequently identify faulty products which could be eliminated from the production line using its digital ports (air, paddle…)

“Not only did this take the strain away from the quality control teams but it also helped the company improve product quality by reducing the number of products that could potentially be identified further down the line”.

“As engineers, we love a challenge and we love working with the latest technology, so this was a great project that really got our brains ticking.”

The company has also taken on additional resources as a result of the support it received from Richard and the SAM team and is confident that it is now on track to record zero detectable failures across its entire operation.