Camera to detect faults in labels

Hi all,

 

We are currently having a problem at our site.

 

We have an operator that controls our labels, but this hasn't been so effective as we hoped.

Operators tend to lose focus and as a result we had faults in the label being undetected.

 

Now I was wondering what technology is available to scan the label on faults at the production line.

Is it possible to use specific kind of cameras that are designed to do this?

 

I'm not sure if I can post links of these cameras so I wait for an approval.

 

I'm open for any kind of suggestions.

 

Thanks in advance,

Michiel

 

Hi all,

 

We are currently having a problem at our site.

 

We have an operator that controls our labels, but this hasn't been so effective as we hoped.

Operators tend to lose focus and as a result we had faults in the label being undetected.

 

Now I was wondering what technology is available to scan the label on faults at the production line.

Is it possible to use specific kind of cameras that are designed to do this?

 

I'm not sure if I can post links of these cameras so I wait for an approval.

 

I'm open for any kind of suggestions.

 

Thanks in advance,

Michiel

 

Hi Michiel,

 

Can you clarify what type of faults are involved ?

 

Hopefully not faults in a rare Language.  :smile:

Hi Michiel,

 

Can you clarify what type of faults are involved ?

 

Hopefully not faults in a rare Language.  :smile:

Well I thought that the description on the label would differ with the wanted description.

After asking, it appears to be the problem that the label isn't complement with the product, woops :).

 

So wrong label with wrong product.

 

Maybe just a camera that we can follow up live from the QA department can be the solution?

I guess we can follow up the proces good if the product and the label are in the picture.

 

Greetings,

Michiel

In my experience, we use cameras to check for the following barcode, artwork and batchcode that is used in boxes and cans. This is after programming the software for a particular product followed by validation.

 

But then again, if you detected so much what you will produced will be "waste". It is then still necessary to enforce operator checks as the best mean to reduce waste.

I've seen someone go 'low budget' and make a printing of the label declaration on a clear piece of film.  Then they would hold it up over the label on the actual product and if they didn't match up, it'd be rejected / put on hold.

multiple sign-offs for verification? have 4 different quality check/signoffs for labeling. 1st Printer operator, then machine operator running line, then after runs through metal detection prior to leaving production, final check is at shipping before it gets loaded to leave.

Add a binder with real labels laminated at that packaging line. Operator has to verify the label they are ABOUT to use matches the product code/description PRIOR to running any product 

 

This will prevent costly rework and is cheap and easy

 

QA should also be doing random checks as should the production supervisor

I spent some time working with an Amazon site and they operate their line with a high-speed scanner that scans every single label for every single case that is being sent out of the facility for sorting and shipping. Of course you are talking about quite a bit of money to get a system like that running but I am also not sure of your overhead.

Thanks for the responses.

Ill keep you in touch.

 

I'm going to connect with my superior and we'll have a talk about this.

Hi Michiel
Our method is to print the final checker ID or employee number on package for identification.
This is to enhance checker's responsible and will refer back to them if there is any customer complaint or found during online inspection.

It's work for us.

Rgds

Sent from my vivo 1609 using Tapatalk

Cameras for fault detection are typically referred to as Vision systems and they can get quite expensive depending on what you need. One of our vendors recently spent $500K on a system for checking of artwork on their food cans. The system scans the entire 360° of the can, using 8 cameras, looking for print/artwork defects and rejects any defects.

 

For just checking labels it shouldn't be too cost prohibitive. Do your labels have bar-codes? If they have a bar code then the vision system can be set just for checking that. It will still require an operator to configure/program the Vision system on the production run so it knows what bar code it's looking for. The same if you're just checking the artwork. An operator will still need to set up the vision system before the run so the system knows what artwork it's looking for. 

 

We have in place a three person sign off on checking of product inkjet date coding and we still have failures. People look but they don't SEE.

 

Computerised Vision systems remove the human element by about 99.9999% of the times but they are still reliant on human input for set-up, verification and validation. But even the best vision systems are not 100% fool proof. The vendor with the can vision system - it was rejecting 100's of cans. An operator looked at the cans being rejected and couldn't find any fault with the artwork so they overrode the rejection. When we got the cans they looked OK to us as well and we didn't see the defect either until we started the filling process. The issue was that the artwork was perfect, just upside down. The vision system knew this but the operator couldn't see the defect because the artwork was actually OK, they were not looking at how it was placed on the can.  Operators get so used to seeing their product they didn't see the problem.

 

 

If you haven't already, do a web search for vision systems and you may get some idea of what they can/cannot do.

Thanks all guys.

This really helped out.

 

So much help from this forum, I'm glad I found this platform.

Adolf,

 

Let us know what you end up going with.  I would like to see if it cost prohibitive for one of my sites.

 

Cheers!