McIlhenny Co., Avery Island, LA, has been producing Tabasco® brand sauce products since 1868. Always quality-minded, the company a few years ago embarked on an effort to perform 100% inspection of the three labels on each bottle to ensure that the right labels are properly positioned on every bottle. This presented a major challenge for vision inspection systems because the filled, sealed, labeled bottles can come down the conveyor inspection line oriented in any direction.
McIlhenny produces glass-bottled product sizes (ranging 2-oz-12-oz) on four packaging lines, operating at about 300 bpm. Each bottle bears a diamond label on the front, a rectangular label on the back, and a wraparound label on the neck top. In addition, a fitment underneath the cap is applied to control product flow during consumer dispensing.
Tom Grimsley, Jr., Bottling Manager for McIlhenny, notes, “For our customers around the world we use hundreds of different labels in various languages. It’s critical that the correct label is affixed properly to every bottle. If we produce an order for one country with labels intended for another country, we will have unhappy customers and considerable expenses to remake and reship the product. In addition, we want to make sure that the label positioning is perfectly precise.”
Grimsley adds, “In the past, we used infrared light and photo-eyes to inspect our labels. This method was capable of determining whether the label was in the correct position, but could not determine if the label itself was the proper label for the order. We wanted something better. So about two years ago, I went to a packaging trade show with our Purchasing Manager and Maintenance Manager to evaluate the latest vision inspection systems for bottling lines. Together, we concluded that Acquire Automation Inc. had the best-performing solution for 360-degree inspection. Acquire Automation uses OmniView technology from Cognex to produce a complete image of the circumference of the bottle. The system offers an operator-friendly human/machine interface and can easily be programmed for new labels and bottle sizes. We also liked the fact that the system is compact, measuring 30 in. by 30 in. So it easily fits within the footprint vacated by our previous vision inspection system.”
