Case Study: Adopting A Vision Inspection System Eliminated Human Limitations And Labor Costs For Pharmaceutical Bottle Manufacturer

A leading maker of plastic bottles originally inspected its clarified polypropylene pharmaceutical bottles for aesthetic defects using human eyes. Adopting a machine vision inspection system eliminated human limitations and labor costs, as expected, but also led to the discovery of just how beneficial vision inspection can be. The result has been no customer rejects due to aesthetic defects, which was common prior to using machine vision inspection.

The injection-blown bottles were initially inspected for two common defects when processing clarified PP; "bubbles" and "black specks"—carbonized contaminants. METTLER TOLEDO CI-Vision suggested a five camera inspection system: one camera for the bottle bottom and four cameras for the perimeter of each bottle. This provided a total surface inspection far exceeding inspection with human eyes. Defects were automatically removed from the line.

That function has operated successfully since its installation in 2005. However, once the system was up and running, the bottle manufacturer's plant management found that it was also detecting certain molding process variations that gave them useful quality feedback about the production line.