Goal: Prevent leakage and seal defects through inline, non-contact quality control of each bag.
Challenge
A large manufacturer packs powder products in 25 kg paper bags with LDPE inner layer. Seal problems such as contamination, crumpling or incomplete sealing lead to leakage, product loss and downtime. Manual sampling misses errors and does not provide 100 percent coverage. The demand was to reliably assess each seal immediately after sealing without slowing down the line.
Solution
Vision Partners implemented inline thermal imaging inspection immediately after sealing. An industrial thermal camera in IP66 housing (640×480 pixels) takes a picture of the entire sealing seam for each bag.
Machine-vision analyzes the heat profile and recognizes error mechanisms such as contamination between the seal, crumpled seal and anomalous seal time.
The PLC triggers the recording and receives an OK/NOK result for alarm or automatic release. Images and results are logged for traceability.
Core Components
- Radiometric thermal camera with IP66 housing
- Stainless steel control cabinet with industrial PC and touchscreen and
- Trigger sensor on the output band
- Communication with PLC via 24 VDC or TCP/IP
- Remote service option with secure access
Result
- 100 percent inline verification of each seal, no reliance on sampling
- Faster detection of repetitive errors, less downtime and rework
- Automatic reject or line stop at suspicious seals
- Complete audit trail with images and reports
Why thermal
Seal defects change the heat profile of the seam. Sealing too short or too long, contamination or folds show up immediately as anomalous temperature patterns. This makes thermography ideally suited for rapid, non-contact detection at production speeds.
Want to have every seal automatically released and catch problems early, schedule a demo or request a pilot.
