Case Study
Sampling Table always jammed
Introduction
Typical problems in a Food and Beverage Bottling Line derive by missing materials like motors, Frequency Converters, detectors, etc. In the following we’ll briefly study a Case where the “material” was much more than necessary. The same, it was not possible to let the Advanced Sampling of a big Canning Filler Machine and related Seamer be feasible.
Close-up on the sampling Table and related Rejector
The figure below shows the Sampling Table designed with:
- 10 belts;
- 5 meters Rejection Table Length, which is the distance from the center of the Rejector to that point of the Table out feed “cone” corresponding to a space equal to 1.5 container's diameter (1 + 1/2 can's diameter equals 96 mm, in this Case).
A great Sampling Table with 10 belts, whose Rejection Table Length is 5 meters. Considering that the Filler Machine to control has a nominal speed of only 72000 cans-per-hour, this Sampling Table is over-dimensioned. A design with 8 belts and 4 meters is cheaper and adequate to the task. The out feed of the sampling area visible in the image enters in a single-belt conveyor (at left-side) necessary to prevent that cans arrived before exchange position with cans arrived later.
Results of this over-sized Sampling Table resulted poor because:
- (Installation) The side guide, indicated by the arrow, presents a profile inducing fallen cans due to cans’ anomalous fast deceleration. Fallen cans becomes jams in the end of the Table, where it starts the single way belt devoted to accumulate the orderly row of Filler Machine valves and Seamer heads;
- (Design) The belts chosen have high friction coefficients, favouring fallen cans and successive jams;
- (Design) No separate lubrification system existing with the effect that front of many more belts than necessary, no lubricant at all is visible, favouring fallen cans and jams.
A Table of this size should have been excellent to sample can at a production speed:
- Cans at > 90000 cans-per-hour, > 2.3 m/s linear speed;
- PET bottles with petaloid base, at > 66000 bottles-per-hour, > 1.8 m/s linear speed;
- Glass bottles, with standard knurling marks under the base, at > 72000 bottles-per-hour, > 1.8 m/s.
But, when considering that the Can Filler Machine to control has a maximum nominal speed of 72000 cans-per-hour, this Sampling Table results definetely over-dimensioned. A design with 8 belts and 4 meters should have been adequate to the task and cheaper. The out feed of the Sampling area visible in the image above (visible in the figure below) enters in a single-belt conveyor necessary to prevent that cans arrived before exchange position with cans arrived later. This single out feeding belt Conveyor lies in the left side of figure.
3 Root Causes
Results of this over-sized Sampling Table were poor because of three independent Root Causes (italics) related to:
- Installation: the black colour side guide indicated by the arrow below, presents a profile inducing fallen cans due to cans’ anomalous fast deceleration. Fallen cans becomes jams in the end of the Table, where it starts the single way belt devoted to accumulate the orderly row of Filler Machine valves and Seamer heads;
- Design: the belts chosen feature high friction coefficients, favouring fallen cans and successive jams;
- Design: no separate lubrification system existing with the effect that front of many more belts than necessary, no lubricant at all is visible, favouring fallen cans and jams.
Incoherences like these are frequently encountered and the list above pin-points what to check first, when Sampling operations results in stopped Bottling or Canning Filler Machines.
Jammed cans, blocking the entire Table, after attempting a Filler-, Capper-, Closer- or Seamer-Sampling operation. Root Causes for the impossible Samplings are the superimposed issues numbered above 1., 2. and 3.

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- Expensive in-the-Machine Electronic Inspectors reduced to cheap Standalone
- Sampling Table permanently jammed
- Filling Level Technical Guarantees
- The Cardboard Label Inspector
- 27 % rejects stopping all days a Bottling Line
- 1 year of production lost
- Cap presence control of sensitive beverages in 2001
- Cap presence control of sensitive beverages in 2010
- 99.5 % of the non-labelled bottles to the Market
- Canning Line's Layout relevance
- Pharma’s in-the-Machine-Cycle electronic inspection
- Leaking Pharmaceutical Containers
- Gold-made electronic cards
- SAFF-sequence Topology
- Human-factor, industrial design and nuclear disasters
- A seismic Incident
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