XPAR Vision has recently completed a project at Ardagh Group, Glass – North America, which was undertaken as part of Ardagh Group’s ongoing investment in enhanced quality and inspection equipment. The provided solution delivers state-of-the-art capability and positions Ardagh Group to incorporate future advances and improvements in technology.
The partnership between Ardagh Group, a global leader in glass and metal packaging solutions, and XPAR Vision, a privately-owned Dutch company, began 15 years ago. Ardagh Group, Glass – North America, a division of Ardagh Group, is a leading US producer of glass bottles and jars for the food and beverage industries. “We are very proud to extend our cooperation”, says Camiel van Dijk, responsible within XPAR Vision for customer relations with Ardagh Group.
Van Dijk: “At XPAR Vision we continuously work on improving our software to support container glass production efficiency and product quality. Of course a lot of the improvements are based on customer feedback. The latest added functionalities enable detecting crucial defects, triggering a signal or alarm, and long-term image storing of all bottles produced. Other relevant software developments are: IR-D connection with CE equipment and implementation of Artificial Intelligence to incorporate root cause indication for operators.”
XPAR Vision’s Infrared Dual camera system (IR-D) analyzes every single bottle at the hot end in real time. Subsequently, the system decides if a bottle is within quality requirements (inspection). Critical defects can be rejected, and thus cleaning up for smooth downstream processes, including cold end inspection. From the data collected by the IR-D the forming process itself is visualized through process characteristics, based on trend data (monitoring). Utilization of the IR-D by following up on warning and alarm notifications helps optimizing the forming process, including mould design, IS maintenance, job change, swabbing, etc. Furthermore, the IR-D data is used for the purpose of automated closed loop control.
www.xparvision.com