FEATURE MACHINE VISION SYSTEMS
VISION SENSOR SECURES CUSTOMER QUALITY FOR PACKAGING SPECIALIST
AT RPC Promens’ Northumberland packaging production facility, thousands of HDPE containers and bottles of almost every shape and size imaginable are produced to exacting customer and international specifications and shipped all over the world. Sick’s Inspector PIM60 vision sensor has helped the plant to secure customer quality control
of every product by operators on the packaging and printing lines. “We always used to consider machine
vision to be a solution for big applications,” Steve Dixon continues. “Using modern vision sensors from Sick to catch any manufacturing defects is offering us the opportunity to introduce something much simpler and more repeatable using a technology that’s under constant development, so there is no risk of obsolescence.
N
o challenge is too great for the plant, in Plenmeller near Haltwhistle, which
is at the forefront of plastic container design. It produces some of industry’s most familiar container shapes for use in everything from agri-chemicals to diesel, and salt to coffee. The facility is a centre for custom designs produced for the company’s Industrial UK operations, part of the multi-national €4 billion turnover RPC Group. “If it’s a challenging customer design, then it’s up to us to solve it,” explains engineering manager, Steve Dixon. “Many of the containers must also meet stringent food hygiene or UN chemical verification standards. So, shipping anything less than a perfect container to customers is simply not an option.” The versatile production facility operates 24-hours a day, with 35 extrusion blow-moulding machine stations to feed a number of single- product, dedicated production lines as well as many more modular line set-ups. A small number of rejects are an
inevitable consequence of the blow- moulding process. However, with such varied output in size and shape, from jars, bottles and jerrycans to oil containers, there has previously been little alternative to the laborious manual quality checking
32 JUNE 2018 | AUTOMATION
To achieve successful inspection by the sensor, RPC’s
engineering team built a new conveyor so each bottle would be stable enough to be centred for accurate imaging
NARROW NECK The first challenge for the Sick Inspector PIM60 was a bottle with a very narrow neck which has been produced at the Plenmeller site for more than 20 years. Up to two million can be produced every year. “As a result of the blow-moulding
process, there’s a potential for difficulties in achieving a consistently round neck and in avoiding flashing or additional material remaining in the neck,” Dixon contines. “Up until now every bottle has needed to be inspected off-line by operatives in the print department.”
The first challenge for the Sick Inspector PIM60 was a bottle with a very narrow neck
INSPECTOR PIM60 The Sick Inspector PIM60 2D vision sensor was ideal for the task. Neil Sandhu, Sick’s UK product specialist for Imaging and Ranging explains: “The Inspector PIM60 is easy to set up. Operators do not need any special training, you simply ‘teach’ it what to look for using the user-friendly software. “An InspectorPIM60 was positioned to
check for six different defects in the neck of the bottle from above. The sensor is set up with a digital output delay, timed to trigger an air jet when the rejected bottle is in the right position to be blown off the line into a scrap container for recycling.” To achieve successful inspection by the
sensor, RPC’s engineering team built a new conveyor so each bottle would be stable enough to be centred for accurate
imaging. Electrical engineer, Tom Nicholson continues: “The Inspector PIM60 was mounted in a light box enclosure to eliminate problems caused for the sensor’s high shutter-speed by the low-frequency fluorescent ambient lighting in the factory. “We also integrated a counting system onto the line, so we could provide a real- time operator check of reject rates. We can also review results and reject rates with a laptop PC via sensor’s web server.”
FIVE LITRE CONTAINERS RPC moved on to install a second Inspector PIM60 vision sensor to inspect the neck of five-litre containers. Some 12 million containers are produced annually as a stock item, and are in constant production at a rate of eight every 15 seconds. On this system, a visual display was added to show real-time results as the system inspects for roundness and any contaminants around the neck. Regular batch changeovers between natural and white colour are easily accommodated. Dixon continues: “The typical reject rate
from the blow moulding process is around 99.4 per cent. Rather than having to rely on human checking which could be subject to attention fatigue, the sensor will pick up a problem every time. “Using the vision system means we can
free up an operator to be more effective elsewhere. However, the advantages go far beyond a saving in labour. The big difference is the reliability. We’ve got the confidence that the product going down the line and out to the customer is going to be right.” “Ideally, as a result of the initial vision
installations we’d like to standardise on Sick vision equipment and introduce it to more of our lines in due course.”
Sick
www.sick.co.uk /AUTOMATION T: 01727 831121
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