Fill level inspection is the basic kind of automated Quality Control in the Food and Beverage Packaging Lines 


Links to the pages:


Introduction

Forty years ago: human inspection of the fill levels, visually measured at the Filler Machine's outfeed, in an European Brewery  

Forty years ago: human inspection of the fill levels, visually measured at the Filler Machine's outfeed, in an European Brewery

Fill level and closure presence inspection were the first inspections conceived for Full Bottles, equipping the most modern Beverage Bottling Lines of forty years ago, when they were commonly named controls.   At right side an example of the worldwide standard Quality Control over thirty years ago.   An Operator constantly looking glass bottles out feeding a slow speed Filler Machine, searching for underfilled, mal positioned or missing caps.   A tedious task, prone to provoke Quality pitfalls: human measurements' repeatability is poor when compared to whatever device.   We start here a chapter in several sections devoted to the technologies existing to inspect the fill level of all possible kinds of container. 

Glass, metal or PET bottles, cans or kegs, by mean of all actually existing techniques:

  • X-rays, with single bridge, for under filling;
  • X-rays, with under and over fill level;
  • X-rays, with two inspection bridges (under and over fill);
  • Gamma-rays;
  • High Frequency, for still beverages;
  • High Frequency, for foaming beverages;
  • High Frequency, with thermal compensation;
  • LASER under filling level;
  • Infrared filling level;
  • Optic fill level inspection, with CMOS or CCD camera.










Fill Level Inspection Optimal Technology

The content of the web pages which can accessed starting by this Introduction answers the basic and most important question about what is the optimal fill level inspection.  The figure below synthesise this relation.  The optimal fill level inspection depends on the kind of Beverage, on the kind of Packaging and on the Layout of the Food and Beverage Packaging Line.  Beverage, Packaging and Layout condition the choice of Fill level Inspection Technology.




Case Study

Foaming beverage and aluminium foil bottle cap









“The optimal fill level inspection depends on the kind of Beverage, on the kind of Packaging and on the Layout of the Food and Beverage Packaging Line.  

Beverage, Packaging and Layout condition the choice of Fill level Inspection Technology”















An example clears the point.  The figure above is representing three bottles of wine, where only the central one is correctly filled.  Wines can be foaming or still.  The Beverage Bottling Line has a Filler and a Labeller Machine.

Imagine to be in the situation where:

  1. Beverage                                      
    1. foaming                      
    2. still


  1. Packaging                                    glass bottle, closed with a cork and wrapped into an Aluminium foil cap                           


  1. Line Layout
    1. after Filler Machine              High Frequency Fill Level Inspection Technology    
    2. after Mabeller Machine        X-Rays Fill Level Inspection technology


The rationale for the different kind of optimal fill level inspection technology are four different combinations:

  • in presence of a foaming beverage, immediately after the Filler Machine, then in presence of bottles’ neck full of foam, we can only inspect it in a reliable, however low- inspection quality, adopting a High Frequency Fill level Inspection;
  • in presence of a foaming beverage, immediately after the Labeller Machine, there is no more presence of bottles’ neck full of foam but the Aluminium-foil cap impedes the High Frequency measurements.  We can only inspect it in a reliable and with high- inspection quality, adopting a X-Rays Fill level Inspection. 
  • in presence of a still beverage, immediately after the Filler Machine, we can only inspect it in a reliable and high- inspection quality way, adopting a X-Rays Fill level Inspection;
  • in presence of a still beverage, immediately after the Labeller Machine, the Aluminium-foil cap impedes any High Frequency fill level inspection.  We can only inspect it in a reliable and high-Quality of inspection way, adopting a X-Rays Fill level Inspection. 


Performances 

The observed performances of the fill level inspection, whichever the Technology, in terms of  defects' detection ratio and false rejects’ ratio, applied to a statistically significative population of containers, are heavily conditioned by the constancy of several factors.  

The common factors, those negatively affecting the inspection, whatever its Technology, are:

  • beverage temperature, affecting the height of the column of liquid in the neck of the bottle or in the head space of the can or keg;
  • containers' speed, preventing a tilted upper surface of the liquid in the container, for an Electronic Inspector impossible to reconduct to a definite level for the beverage;
  • physical properties of the container (e.g., irregularities on the container density in the area of inspection, like ellipsoidic rather than circular bottle necks);
  • chemical properties of the container (irregularities in the container molecular structure, in the area of inspection);
  • foaming, affecting the beverage in the neck and head space area of the container.


As a consequence, the Electronic Inspector’s performances named:



















  • false rejects’ relative ratio %;
  • defects’ detection ratio %;


whatever the technology we choose to check containers' fill level, cannot be measured at all during: 

  • Filler or Labeller Machines ramp-up or ramp-down phases;
  • Time intervals so wide to have implied a change on the thermal conditions of the Filler Machine, itself in equilibrium with the ambient apart an unavoidable hysteresis implied by its huge metal mass, changes on thermal conditions transferred to the liquid in the container and to the air medium in which the container and the HF fill livel bridge both lies.


Statistically significative samples

They can only be measured in the conditions of constant nominal speed of the Filler or Labeller.  More, they can only be measured over samples of production whose size is coherent with the criticity of the inspection and with the amount of bottles inspected each one hour.    To make an example: how to check the Fill Level Inspection of an Inspector in the out feed of an intensely producing Labeller Machine, one labelling over 1 100 000 bottles in a day, five days in a week ?

If for a fill level inspection operating at e.g., only 10 000 bph (< 240 000 bottles in a day) a false rejects’ test including the complete control of all of the rejects along 2 hours is enough (< 20000 processed bottles) in the prior much more critical high-speed case it results necessary to control the rejects of > 8 (non-consecutive) hours of production.  

This way, it results possible to ameliorate the estimation of the Inspector performances.







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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