Graphene^®      Food and Beverage Electronic Inspection Experts

Introduction

Scuffing is a memory of the many passages of the returnable bottle thru the Bottling Line, mainly of the wearing of its external sidewalls after friction with other adiacent bottles. 

Scuffing is a defect because: 

• these bottles do not represent in the best qualitative conditions the Product to the eyes of Customers;
• is a permanent impedement to use fully the capabilities of detection of the defects of the EBI's Optoelectronics;
• if not removed, should continue to recirculate in the loop between Washer machine and EBI outfeed toward Washer Machine, a closed loop implying a time-dependent, monotone increasing function for the average reject of the EBI, until Bottling Line instability and stop of the Filler Machine.

It is one of the defects no Bottle Washer shall never remove, jointly with:

• scuffing;
• mineral ring.

It exists, however quite rarely applied to EBIs worldwide, a specific inspection specialized for this type of defects.   

It allows to classify these bottles to:

• automatic destruction;
• or, to an accumulation table.

It is important to understand the External Sidewall inspections, cannot divert these bottles to an out feed different than toward Bottle Washer.   These defects really need a separate inspection, associated to a special Reject Definition, allowing the possibility to reject to destruction what is detected by an External Sidewall inspection otherwise rejecting to Bottle Washer. 

Its operative principle is the same identical of the External Sidewall inspection.  Group of Ranges of Grey are associated to Groups of Areas of Inspection in the scuffed zones of the external sidewall.     

 A deeply scuffed base of a bottle may prevent the beverage quality and safety assurance, associated to the Base Inspection. Base scuffing resembles an annular defect, of extreme size, lying in the bottle's base.  In the example, the base of a bottle of beer made by Owens Illinois® in 1941, when bottles were exclusively checked at slow speed by Operators (image credit B. Lindsey, 2014)

Cutting-off false rejects due to scuffing 

Scuffing can be hided to the sight of the External Sidewall inspections cameras by mean of a thin damping of Filler water, to reduce false rejects. 

An example of such an assemble, capable to cut ~ 90 % of the otherwise huge rejects by the External Sidewall inspections, in the image on right side.  A photosensor detects incoming rows of bottles, proceeding toward the following EBI and control a timed fog-like nebulisation of Filler Machine water, by mean of 8 nozzles of extremely thin water drops over bottles external sidewalls.   

This way, whatever the scuffing's depth, whatever the level of humidity of the incoming sidewalls, it is possible to assure a constant transparency of the glass, as seen by the cameras into the following EBI.

Anti-scuffing water nebulisation, before the external sidewall inspections of a Linear EBI  

Case study

When Competitors own 92 % of the bottles infeeding the Bottle Washer Machine

The bottles at right side originate by a Glass Returnable Bottling Line where the Filler Machine is a model with  nominal production 60000 bhp implying EBI peak outfeed conveyor speed of 1.6 m/s at 72000 bhp.  

Because of that scuffing and of the high Quality desired in the meantime by the Bottler as to what had to consider a 'correct sidewall' (a 'negative'), External Sidewall inspections alone were ranging: (3.5 - 4.5)%.   Say, over 2400 bottles-per-hour returned to the Bottle Washer machine.  Bottles with a kind of defect which cannot be removed, returned to the EBI after ~ 1 hour, a big problem the Electronic Block's automation could not recover without too frequent accelerations > 35 %.   

Also, an EBI compelled to run too frequently to the peak speed of 72000 bhp, 1.57 m/s.                               

The Brewery was sincerely desireful to increase the Quality of its products.  Fronting, like several others Beverage Bottlers in the World, a single however huge impedement: it could not change (5 - 10) % of the  population of the circulating bottles in a few weeks.  

The problem was not simply a matter of time necessary to let all Brewery crates return to the Brewery, so to replenish them with exclusively new bottles.  At that time the Brewey owned 8 % of all of these circulating bottles.  

The remaining 92 % owned by its Competitors.  A massive operation of replacement of the old bottles could not have been practiced at all by our Customer, because in the crates returning from the Market ~40 % of the bottles were not its bottles.  

Glass returnable bottles really are vehicles , …vehiculating taste and Quality of your beverage to the final Customers. To increase Quality the Brewery should have had to continue to depalletise and introduce in the Bottling Line 100 % of new bottles along many consecutive months. Discovering just a few weeks later that … ~60 % of the new bottles expensively introduced were not into the returning crates.   

  New bottles, single colour, same size and no scuffing. What the 500 ml standard capacity should had to be at the epoch the Case Study is referred (image credit ScandinavianDesignLab®)

This kind of problem, the seasoned bad habit of Competing Companies using a common container, is the straightest way to create long-terms Quality and Production problems affecting the Bottling process of entire countries (same identical problem we encountered in Argentina, 13000 km afar, in 1994).  The water nebulisation assemble visible in  the figure above solved completely the problem of extreme rejects, caused by highly scuffed external sidewalls. 

This way, external sidewalls artificially made new started to be seen by the single infeed External Sidewall Inspection of that fast Linear EBI.

Links to the other pages:

Classification on base of the kind of container Empty Bottle Inspectors (EBIs) and the related measurements whose goal is a binary classification (collectively named inspections), are a category making a particularly sensitive activity: to protect final consumers' health, assuring beverages' safety in the Food and Beverage Packaging Lines. …

Comparison of Linear & Rotary EBIRotary EBIThe Empty Bottle Inspectors of the past were always and only Rotary Machines. The industries which first started to design and produce them and those which adopted them, were all US-based and specialized in the production of glass bottles. …

IntroductionWhen discussing elsewhere the High Frequency fill level inspection, we also examined the complex mechanism of interaction between the High Frequency (HF) electromagnetic waves, whose frequency is comprised between 3 - 30 MHz, and polar liquids like water. …

Introduction It is a fact: when bottles are urgently needed, also glass returnable bottles born to host beer or mineral water, can fulfill their basic purpose of container for liquids of completely different nature. …

Introduction Base inspection is the most important at all and also the first historically created for EBIs. In the start, it was applied to small inspectors used by glass bottles Producers. It is always present in the Empty Bottle Inspectors, as a minimum standard, jointly with a few others like the High Frequency Residual Liquid control and the Finish inspection.

A common PET bottle as visible with (right side) and without (left side) polarising filtering. At right side, cellophane in the stripes around the bottle rotates the light polarization vector ( C. …

Introduction The term “finish” originates with the mouth-blown bottle production process where the last step in completing a finished bottle was to finish its lip. Today, the lip or finish is the first forming step in the bottle making process. …

Operative principleThe operative principle of the Finish inspection is applied, in a similar way, to the more complex case of check of the status of the glass threads. In this case, light is generated by an illuminator on top of the finish. …

In the Linear Glass Returnable Empty Bottle Inspectors, External Sidewall Inspection may be performed adopting one or two CCD-cameras. We’ll treat in the following the application with two CCD-cameras: single-camera applications are not satisfactory, covering only < 80 % of the external surface of the bottles.

Why Inner Sidewall InspectionThe inner surface of the bottle may host larvae, insects and other low-contrast foreign objects whose detection, as seen by the External Sidewall is nearly impossible. …

IntroductionThey exist defects no Bottle Washer shall never remove, whatever the duration of its cycles, the amount of caustic soda or temperature of the water.Between these:Paint, internal or external;…

IntroductionScuffing is a memory of the many passages of the returnable bottle thru the Bottling Line, mainly of the wearing of its external sidewalls after friction with other adiacent bottles. Scuffing is a defect because: …

Infeed checksEmpty Bottle Inspectors always need to be protected by prior controls and rejector, to prevent damages implicit in their operation. Fallen bottles, inclined bottles, broken bottles, …

IntroductionTo perceive the rationale for the inspection of the bottles’ colour, we recommended to take a look at the figure on right side. That is what a Customer considered “a bottle format”. …

Closure inspection with digitalphotoscanners(to be continued)Links to the other pages: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.

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.