MACHINE VISION
KEEP CHECK ON PACKAGING QUALITY
Automation and digitisation are
advancing in the food industry, with inline quality management benefiting in particular. With the support of MVTec Software, PackCheck has developed a modular solution for ensuring packaging quality
nsuring safety and accuracy of correct packaging is a high priority in the food industry. In addition to the packaging quality, the high variation of different packaging and labeling is also a challenge. These challenges can be solved through automation. "In automation projects, our customers want to benefit on one hand from classic advantages such as optimal utilisation of employee capacity, increased productivity, as well as less rejects. On the other hand, and this is particularly important for the food industry, producers are looking for end-to-end inline quality assurance for the packaging process," explained Peter de Jong, Sales Manager and Co-Owner, of PackCheck. PackCheck says customers are looking for ways to ensure consistently correct packaging in all their packaging lines. This also involves verification of bar and data codes. To meet these customer requirements, PackCheck developed a completely new modular inspection platform. The machine-vision-based platform provides a complete and seamless overview of the packaging process. For this purpose, inspection points are set up at relevant positions along the packaging line. Each checkpoint can integrate up to four cameras, which provide a complete inline quality inspection of the packaging and labelling process. In addition to the hardware, the ViTrack system control software developed by PackCheck is used. Within that software, the MVTec HALCON machine vision software takes care of the image processing.
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"Our solution can be used at any point in a packaging line but also in a cleanroom environment. The flexibility and speed of the inspection platform also makes it possible to inspect many different products in a short
time," explained de Jong. The inspection tasks performed by the machine-vision-based platform exceed the number of tasks that humans could perform. For example, in production lines that are not fully automated, quality control is only performed by employees on a sample basis. In addition, the human eye can never keep up with the speed, consistent objectivity, as well as endurance of an automated solution. As a result, products with quality deficiencies end up in retail, leading to product recalls. These are caused by packaging defects as well as incorrect or missing allergen markings on packaging or labels. The goal of companies is to minimise the number of recalls as much as possible through inline quality control, and draw conclusions in the event of frequently occurring defects.
Machine vision offers the advantage that it can be used for different applications. Customers using the inspection platform need machine vision for two applications: quality control of packaging and for checking labels and markings. The technology is capable of performing surface inspection in milliseconds, recognising codes and characters, and reading them. This means that all information about a product. such as the packaging quality, best-before date and allergen listing, can be viewed at any time.
"When developing the scalable, modular platform, it was important to find a software solution that could be fully integrated. We also wanted to be hardware-independent and have programmable software in order to react flexibly to different circumstances. Of course, the fact that the software had to be particularly powerful was another factor. With all these requirements, we quickly came across HALCON," de Jong explained. The
16 DECEMBER 2024/JANUARY 2025 | PROCESS & CONTROL
Inspecting the package – top and bottom on the label, product, best-before date and barcodes. Copyright PackCheck
HALCON software from MVTec features a library of over 2100 operators. In addition to the software, PackCheck also took advantage of MVTec's consulting services.
The modular inspection system consists of camera systems with up to four cameras each and a track controller at the relevant points on the production line. The inspection platform has a modular design, which means that theoretically an infinite number of camera systems can be used by a customer. The system is controlled by the ViTrack software developed by PackCheck. A robust interface is required for smooth interaction between hardware and software. Here, PackCheck uses OPC UA, a standard that simplifies the networking of devices, automation systems and software applications.
Once the system knows which product is being inspected, the inspection process begins. The actual inspection of the acquired image is carried out in the vision controller based on the inspection program using machine vision. The result is then sent back to the tracking controller. If the product is faulty, it is rejected, if it is OK, it is processed further. Machine vision processing with HALCON is executed on the vision controller. The modular inspection platform is capable of performing complex inspection processes at a speed of 100 packages per minute.
The platform has already been in use by food companies since the beginning of 2023. Each of these companies has automated the inspection of several production lines, each with different products, using the inspection platform. PackCheck is very satisfied with the results and customer feedback.
MVTec Software
www.mvtec.com
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