The challenge
A producer of high-quality sauces, fruit preparations, and food ingredients has several fully automated filling lines. After filling, the bottles are sealed inductively with an Enercon induction sealer: aluminum foil is bonded to the bottle rim via electromagnetic induction.
Quality control for this seal was entirely manual: during the packaging process, employees checked each bottle by squeezing it. This approach is labor-intensive and prone to errors, and offers no guarantee of 100% quality control at high production speeds. Furthermore, seal defects occurred that are difficult to detect manually—such as a seal that is too tight and nearly impossible for the end user to open, or a double seal that compromises packaging integrity.
The variety in products made the inspection extra complex: the bottles are sometimes filled with hot or chilled sauces, and the caps vary in color.
The solution
Vision Partners conducted a feasibility study on the customer's production line. In this study, an industrial FLIR A70 thermal imaging camera was used to compile a dataset of various products, caps, filling temperatures, and simulated seal defects. The results confirmed that thermal inspection is suitable for detecting the most critical types of defects.
Based on this research, Vision Partners has proposed a turnkey thermal inspection system that is placed above the conveyor belt, between the induction sealer and the labeling machine. A trigger sensor initiates image capture at the right moment, after which the Machine Vision software evaluates the thermal image in real time.
The system detects the following seal errors:
- Double seal
- Missing seal
- Seal placed upside down
- Crooked cap
- Too hard seal (oversealing)
- Incomplete seal
The system consists of:
- FLIR A70 Industrial Thermal Camera in stainless steel housing with matching lens and cables
- RVS inspection frame that is placed on the conveyor belt
- Industrial PC with touchscreen monitor in RVS control cabinet, including power supply and connections
- Trigger sensor for accurate synchronization of image capture
- Lamp with alarm signaling for direct communication with the operator
- Machine Vision Software with adjustable inspection recipes per product, cap color, and filling temperature
The software offers multiple user interfaces: a main screen with real-time inspection results, a log screen with over 10,000 saved inspections, and a settings screen for authorized users. Remote support is possible via a secure TeamViewer connection.
The result
Vision Partners' thermal inspection system automatically detects specified seal defect types without production downtime and at full production speed. This completely eliminates time-consuming and error-prone manual quality control.
The feasibility study showed that the FLIR A70 provides robust inspection for the most critical error types. Double seals, missing seals, crooked caps, and over-sealed packaging are reliably detectable through the thermal profile. The system is easy to set up using inspection recipes tailored to the diversity of bottles, caps, and fill temperatures.
Vision Partners provided the complete turn-key process: from feasibility study and system design to hardware installation, software commissioning, FAT in Drunen and SAT at the customer's site, including staff training.
Learn more about thermal seal inspection of thermal imaging inspection? Get in touch.
