Page 30 - Glass Machinery Plants & Accessories no. 5/2017

SOFTWARE
Software What can you tell us about the company developments DPOUBJOFS JT mMMFE XJUI UIF QSPEVDU
Interview with Mr. Logel

you will start to see it. And that’s
and expansion going on at Iris?
As you know, the hollowware glass industry is facing quite a
very bad because it damages the
image of products.
few challenges, and glassmakers need to have high produc-
tivity and to ensure quality of course. And high productivity
What about lightweight contai-
means being able to have high quality products at high speed.
ners? Does that change anything
And when we speak about high speed production there are
always containers with defects so the accuracy of the glass
for your machines?
inspection equipment is really a key point in this process
In lightweight bottles, manufactured
because obviously if your machine is not accurate enough
glass distribution will be almost perfect and there are fewer
you will risk rejecting a lot of good wares. This means that your
productivity is going to drop.
shadow areas in the image, but there are new faults such as
Here at Iris we are really working on this because one of the
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drawbacks of a camera machine is that they were not accu- using Narrow Neck Press & Blow,
other hand, if you have too much glass you will see some wire
rate enough. And to be able to reject the bad ware you were FEHF PS PWFSQSFTTFE JO UIF mOJTI
obliged to accept the rejection of some good wares too.
So we have been working a lot on the optics of our machines Does this mean that you at Iris have to adapt your machi-
and the algorithms that are involved to be able to increase the nes to these new defects and faults?
precision of rejection and to be able to identify the difference :FT PG DPVSTF 3JHIU OPX XF IBWF KVTU mOJTIFE XPSLJOH PO B
between good and bad ware. OFX JOTQFDUJPO PQUJPO GPS UIF mOJTI BWBJMBCMF PO &WPMVUJPO
Another challenge is that what is considered good ware is not
the same for different countries. This means that instead of What about the other machines of the Evolution family?
good ware I would not consider good ware but sellable ware. Evolution 16, for example?
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stress, while Ultimate is able to detect a very slight faults on
Are we speaking about tolerances then? And does this high value containers like those used in the perfume sector,
mean that your machines need to have different tolerance where transparency is fundamental.
ranges for different areas of the world? This is why the machine is called Ultimate – as it’s for a very
Exactly. Different tolerances. And in a South American plant, TQFDJmD BOE EFNBOEJOH NBSLFU
for instance, they have quality A, and quality B and these
different levels of quality would be for different customers. For Let’s talk about your installations. I know that one of your
example, international brands would get quality A – top qua- recent important and big number of installations was in
lity, while a smaller and local customer would get (and would Latine America ...
request) lower quality at lower price. In Mexico in fact. We have a lot of machines installed in
This is something that everybody involved in inspection tries .FYJDP o BCPVU CVU XF IBWF NPSF UIBO NBDIJOFT
to do but it is not so easy. JOTUBMMFE XPSMEXJEF 5IF FYBDU OVNCFS JT
Here at Iris, we have worked a lot on sophisticated algorithms;
if you have an engraving on a bottle for example, our machines On average, how many of your machines are normally
can identify the difference between the engraving and a fault. installed in a glassworks and how many do they actually
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shadow zone, and the fault in the middle will be a black spot They should have two machines on each line. The number
inside a shadow zone. This means that you really have to work depends on how many lines they have, of course, but we are
a lot on the image to identify the difference between a stone, nowadays speaking of about four to six lines per furnace. And
for example, and an engraving. The machines can identify the PVS NBDIJOFT BSF BCMF UP JOTQFDU BU IJHI TQFFE o VQ UP
engraving and then check for faults inside the shadow zone of bpm.
the engraving. Think of how glass is used and how much glass we need
Speaking about our algorithms, at IRIS there is a dedicated every day. Water, wine, beer, for example, all taste better in
team of people constantly working on these algorithm of image glass according to consumers. It enhances the appearance
processing each and every day to increase the ability to identify of the products it contains and it does not interfere in any way
and differentiate between what is acceptable and what is not with the product it contains, and it can be recycled endlessly.
acceptable.
It would be easy if there was a model for good ware but in The market is now starting to pick up and we are seeing more
the glass industry two good bottles can be very different. sales in markets for containers for food stuffs, but also for
They have different features and characteristics such as the high-value containers too.
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These two features mean that the image will be different but machines are camera-based, with a computer system, and
they are both good and sellable wares. most of the innovations on our machines are those regarding
software. When you get a new function you have the optics
Does it also depend on the product they will be used for? and other features but there is always the software behind
This is part of the work we carry out in glass plants, and it does these features.
not really have anything to do with the product that will go into Right now our machines are able to communicate using Wi-Fi
the bottle or container. and the Internet, and this means that based on very strong sof-
But sometimes there are defects in containers that are very UXBSF XF BSF BCMF UP JOUFHSBUF PVS NBDIJOFT JO QMBOUT UP TFOE
EJGmDVMU UP TFF XIFO UIF DPOUBJOFS JT FNQUZ TVDI BT B MJHIU and receive information, to be in contact remotely – all important
tear on a container for mayonnaise or mustard, but when the for the future of our industry.

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