A few contaminated bottles can cost you millions in: product withdrawal, product replacement, business interruption, loss of earnings and, because of the power assumed today by the Media, crumbling shares

“False rejects’ volume, implicit in the adoption of the camera-technology, conjures to let the Risk [of sensitive beverages ingested by Consumers] be ranging (5 - 10)%, rather than the supposed <0.1%”


A sensitive beverage, like the juice without added preservatives, also if aseptically filled in the ideal conditions, is destined to become a Septic Beverage if the bottle is later not truly closed. The image above shows Leakage Inspection equipment in a COCA-COLA® factory. Equipment assuring today’s maximum safety levels to plastic-packaged Food and Beverages

No balance sheet has a line for Clostridium Botulinum or Listeria.   And too frequently the countermeasures truly existing in the Electronic Inspectors, the automated Quality Control devices which have to impede contaminations due to leaking or non closed bottles, are not what assumed.   Understand your exposure by mean of Graphene’s technical exam of the real situation at you site.   


 A sensitive beverage, like the juice without added preservatives, also if aseptically filled in the ideal conditions, is destined to become a Septic Beverage if the bottle is later not truly closed. The image above shows Leakage Inspection equipment in a COCA-COLA factory


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A few contaminated bottles can cost you millions in:

  • product withdrawal, 
  • product replacement,
  • business interruption, 

and loss of earnings.   Understanding your risk can help you minimize the impact.   Graphene® assess the risk of a product recall to you, and boils it down to one number.   Fast and confidential.   So that you can make informed decisions to protect your Customers, your supply chain, and your bottom line.   



Closure relevance

It is frequently oversight that a closure represents a logical function “IF“, conditioning Food and Beverage Safety.  Since they started to circulate the plastic caps advertised to be acting like a seal + cap, the bitter reality we discovered is exactly the opposite than that expected by the collective imaginary of the worldwide Food and Beverage professional community.     Also, all systems to control the closure control only the closure and not the leakage associated to a slightly mal positioned cap. Because of this reason all cameras-only equipped systems (whatever their Vendor), say those systems whose inspections are exclusively electromagnetics, cannot guarantee the Beverage Safety levels desired by the Bottlers of sensitive products.   Levels whose digits, in the end of the chain, correspond to maximum acceptable risks to contaminate physical persons.   The relative porcentage of the Risk of open, potentially Septic, bottles truly shipped to final Customers is much higher than imagined or acceptable. 



 It is frequently oversight that a closure represents a logical function “IF“, conditioning Food and Beverage Safety.   Since they started to circulate the PET caps “advertised to be acting like a seal + cap”, the bitter reality we discovered is exactly the opposite than the public one.  Also, all systems to control the closure, control only the closure and not the leakage associated to a slightly mal positioned cap.  Because of this reason all camera-only equipped systems, imply security levels much lower than you imagine. The relative porcentage of Risk of open and potentially Septic bottles truly shipped to Customers, is much higher than imagined or acceptable.  False rejects’ volumes, implied in the adoption of the visual inspection (cameras-only) technology, conjuring to let the Risk be ranging (5 - 10) %, rather than the < 0.1 % imagined by the Bottler’s Quality Control Department



clostridium botulinum and c

  


sensitive dairy products co med

The volume of the false rejects, implied in the adoption of the visual inspection (cameras-only) technology, conjures to let the Risk be ranging (5 - 10) %, rather than < 0.1 % imagined by the Bottler’s Quality Control Department.   We know this, what could be defined the Contaminated Customers' Accountancy Level, in its fine details since 2003.   Since then part of different Aseptic Fillling pilot projects.  When during an Aseptic Line acceptance test all of the bottles, several thousands, are individually manually-tested for eventual leakage after the Electronic Inspector to assess the real Risk of contamination associated to the operation of the Aseptic Lines the False Negatives makes their appearance. 

 Manually squeezing one-by-one many thousands of bottles, looking for leakages immediately after the Electronic Inspector, the False Negatives, say the truly leaking dangerous bottles erroneously considered Negative and then non rejected, it is built up the reality.  Reality which only a statistically-based test may let us see.  An impressive amount of non-sealed open containers leaving the Bottling Line, as frequently the Quality Control Staff yet suspected






An Aseptic Bloc including Filler and a Capper with electronic inspection heads, measuring each cap’s individual torque.  Also integrating sensors of an external Full bottle Inspector (final inspection system)   




lysteriaAseptic Bloc 720x541@1x Aseptic Bloc. It is frequently oversight that a closure represents a logical function “IF“, conditioning Food and Beverage Safety. Since they started to circulate the plastic caps advertised to be acting like a seal + cap, the bitter reality we discovered is exactly the opposite than that expected by the collective imaginary of the worldwide Food and Beverage professional community. Also, all systems to control the closure control only the closure and not the leakage associated to a slightly mal positioned cap. Because of this reason all cameras-only equipped systems (whatever their Vendor), say those systems whose inspections are exclusively electromagnetics, cannot guarantee the Beverage Safety levels desired by the Bottlers of sensitive products. Levels whose digits, in the end of the chain, correspond to maximum acceptable risks to contaminate physical persons. The relative porcentage of the Risk of open, potentially Septic, bottles truly shipped to final Customers is much higher than imagined or acceptable. The volume of the false rejects, implied in the adoption of the visual inspection (cameras-only) technology, conjures to let the Risk be ranging (5 - 10) %, rather than < 0.1 % imagined by the Bottler’s Quality Control Department. We know this, what could be defined the Contaminated Customers' Accountancy Level, in its fine details since 2003. Manually squeezing one-by-one many thousands of bottles, looking for leakages immediately after the Electronic Inspector, the False Negatives, say the truly leaking dangerous bottles erroneously considered Negative and then non rejected, it is built up the reality. Reality which only a statistically-based test may let us see. An impressive amount of non-sealed open containers leaving the Bottling Line, as frequently the Quality Control Staff yet suspected Since then part of different Aseptic Fillling pilot projects. When during an Aseptic Line acceptance test all of the bottles, several thousands, are individually manually-tested for eventual leakage after the Electronic Inspector to assess the real Risk of contamination associated to the operation of the Aseptic Lines the False Negatives makes their appearance. Manually squeezing (one-by-one) thousands of bottles, looking for leakages immediately after the Electronic Inspector, the False Negatives, say the truly leaking dangerous bottles erroneously considered Negative (safe bottles) and then non rejected, it is built up the reality which only a statistically-based test may let us see. This also when the Capping, Closing or Sealing Machines are operating in their best conditions, say with truly minimum defective closings and sealings. Same is true for the Electronic Inspectors who are controlling those seals. Set at their best overall performances and high sensitivity. We are trying to clear that the relevance of the False rejects’ volume, implicit in the adoption of the camera-technology, conjures to let the Risk be ranging (5 - 10) %, rather than the < 0.1 % imagined by the Quality Control Departments. Quite obviously, to know the fine details of this accountancy, is a matter to enter in contact with specialists not acting in conditions of conflict of interests, assessing the risk on a case-by-case base.






  Lysteria









Manually squeezing (one-by-one) thousands of bottles, looking for leakages immediately after the Electronic Inspector, the False Negatives, say the truly leaking dangerous bottles erroneously considered Negative (safe bottles) and then non rejected, it is built up the reality which only a statistically-based test may let us see.   

This also when the Capping, Closing or Sealing Machines are operating in their best conditions, say with truly minimum defective closings and sealings.   Same is true for the Electronic Inspectors who are controlling those seals.  Set at their best overall performances and high sensitivity.    We are trying to clear that the relevance of the False Rejects’ volume, implicit in the adoption of the camera-technology, conjures to let the Risk be ranging (5 - 10) %, rather than the < 0.1 % imagined by the Quality Control Departments.   Quite obviously, to know the fine details of this accountancy, is a matter to enter in contact with specialists not acting in conditions of conflict of interests, assessing the risk on a case-by-case base.



 Extensive microbiological testing performed in the ABInbev® Bottling Lines yet as early as in 1998, immediately before and after the Empty Bottle Inspectors, showed a marked dip in the count of bacterias in the glass returnable bottles.  Deeper analysis associated this increased hygiene of the bottles, immediately before to be filled and closed, with the fact that each one bottle was irradiated by eight different strobo flashers (~30 joules each) during its passage through the EBI.  Strobo flashes with a broad UV part of their radiant energy spectrum. Now, ask yourself, what should the count have been if the closing should not have been accomplished at all…   Bacterial presence in the air, with the assistance of the energy provided by sunbeams, should have assured their reproduction in the sugar-rich beverage






Links to other pages:

root_cause_analysis-2_med

Links to related topics: IntroductionRoot Cause Analysis (RCA) is much more than a technique of investigation of Industrial Machinery's inefficiencies or malfunctions. Part of it are the pillars of the…

Design and integration of inspection systems. Twenty years ago we entered the Food and Beverage field after years designing in a Technical Department the electronic circuits and automations of Packaging Automatic Machines. We spent past two decades on side of the SASIB Beverage™ / SIG® / Tetra Laval -Sidel® designers and project managers of the Layout, System Engineering, Procurement and Project Management Departments: examining Vendors’ offers, preparating electronic inspectors Minimum Requirements, controlling and fine-adjusting tens of new Lines’ layouts or upgrading the pre-existing, Designing conveyors, sampling, electronic blocks, reject accumulation tables, in presence of electronic inspectors, integrating Electronic Inspectors, meeting Customers preferances, choosing the Inspectors’ Optoelectronic configurations optimised for their products and peculiarities; root cause analysing tens of failed Packaging Line Layouts. To design a winning Layout does not signifies to oversize bottles’ accumulations, distances and tons of the expensive Conveyors’ stainless steel. Remember the V2 rockets which started to fall over London in 1944 ? They were single-stage rockets. What should have happened if Werner Von Braun should have continued to follow such a design-strategy for its Saturn V rocket destined to the Moon, rather than to pass to the mathematician K. E. Tsiolkovsky multi-stages concept ? Surely the first Man on the Moon should have been …Russian ! Von Braun had to think in a wider space. He understood Tsiolkovsky’s theoretical demonstrations established strict physical limits: a new design address, different than his own V2 was necessary to let the Lunar Project be some years later a successful one. This is true also in our Food and Beverage Bottling Lines, when acting to assure success to a Layout’s design. What means ...project ? Following the Merriam Webster dictionary (an Encyclopedia Britannica Co., 2014) ethimological definition: “Middle English projecte, from Medieval Latin projectum, from Latin, neuter of projectus, past participle of proicere to throw forward, from pro-jacere to throw”. To project something really means to imagine all what should later happen, if a very long row of design choices should be made factual. It’s like to study in what a way a tree of identified botanical variety, shall thinkably grow along future 10, 20, 30, …, 50 years, if planted there, in that season, on that ground, with that solar exposure, close to those other trees, etc. etc….. who, what, when, in what extent plus their complementary excluded amounts and categories. 25 centuries old canons of Philosophy, revived in the way to create a successful Project or to Root Cause Analyse an effect. To assure success to a Layout first of all implies a deep and true comprehension of the Customer's fundamental desires and of the eventual criticities implicit in these desiderata. One time this comprehension is considered complete, it is necessary to pass to the second step, how the Customer wish list can be made factual. This is the phase where an initial temptative Layout is drawn. In this phase, it is necessary to really know: each one Machine in the Layout. What each one Machine (or Device, like the Inspectors) needs in terms of containers accumulated before, of spaces available later, distances between containers and their maximum deviations, temperature of the containers, etc. overall correlation between Machines, Conveyors, Services. A banal example being the vital necessity to assure Operators and Maintenance staff an adequate space to access the Machines. An operative condition perfect for a Machine 50 meters afar and before can imply an impossibility to let another operate correctly. When summing Design activities to those of Field Service Engineering, the total number of SASIB Beverage™, SIG® and Sidel® (Tetra Laval Group®) Bottling Lines where the technical solutions designed by our staff are being applied jumps to nearly 300. Just an example visible in the different figures above, showing details of the Layout of the 60000 bottles-per-hour glass returnable Bottling Line of Yantar® Brewery at Nikolayev, Ukraine (a SABMiller® company). Here, we redesigned in 2008 positions and configurations of the Electronic Inspectors. A value added to Bottling Line masterplan: that Layout was preferred to competing offers by other OEMs and is since 2009 running and productive. Seasoned running examples are the tens of Grupo Modelo® (an ABInbev® company) glass returnable Bottling Lines in Mexico filling the Corona® beer in the bottle visible here on right side. For these Beverage Bottling Lines our staff (in the meantime installing, system-integrating, starting and commissioning also the then fastest Linear EBI of the world in Yarpivo® at Yaroslavl, Russia, a Baltika® Group company), in Spring 2003 redesigned a new optimized Line Layout. This new Layout was made necessary when Grupo Modelo® decided to replace tens of rotary EBIs with tens of Linear EBIs.

“Project: Middle English projecte, from Medieval Latin projectum, from Latin, neuter of projectus, past participle of proicere to throw forward, from pro-jacere to throw” (Merriam Webster dictionary definition of “Project”, an Encyclopedia Britannica Co., 2014)

Risk Assessment for Contamination of bottled beverages

“False rejects’ volume, implicit in the adoption of the camera-technology, conjures to let the Risk [of sensitive beverages ingested by Consumers] be ranging (5 - 10)%, rather than the supposed <0.1%”

Contractual advice

Graphene's staff played since 1990 on side of the Vendors' of machinery in the Technical Design and in the Field Engineering Departments. Designing before, later commissioning packaging and textile machinery, automated quality assurance electronic inspection equipment and related Conveyors. …

190654-2 med hr

Field Service EngineeringGraphen is built over an experience of almost thirty years in the industry of the automatic machinery and copntrols. Last twenty serving global Food and Beverage Manufacturers and Logistics. …

Food and Beverage Packaging Line’s most productive component: youMan is the measure of all things is an idea probably originated in ancient times by the philosopher Protagoras (490-420 B.C.). And whoever living in a Food and Beverage Packaging Line knows how true Protagoras was.…

Certified Inspectors and Controls

Machinery and EquipmentsHeuft SystemtechnikHEUFT InLine™ Empty Bottle InspectorCourse delivered by HEUFT staff and attended in the HEUFT factory at Burgbrohl, Germany, 5 days, advanced level


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This website has no affiliation with, endorsement, sponsorship, or support of Heuft Systemtechnik GmbH, MingJia Packaging Inspection Tech Co., Pressco Technology Inc., miho Inspektionsysteme GmbH, Krones AG, KHS GmbH, Bbull Technology, Industrial Dynamics Co., FT System srl, Cognex Co., ICS Inex Inspection Systems, Mettler-Toledo Inc., Logics & Controls srl, Symplex Vision Systems GmbH, Teledyne Dalsa Inc., Microscan Systems Inc., Andor Technology plc, Newton Research Labs Inc., Basler AG, Datalogic SpA, Sidel AG, Matrox Electronics Systems Ltd.  

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