Food

Capilano Honey

indexing table

Compact vision system achieves 100% defect detection rate on high-speed indexing machine.

The retrofit of an advanced vision system at a honey packaging plant provides an automated alternative to a labour-intensive and inconsistent manual operation.

Capilano Honey is one of the world leaders in honey production and with operations in Australia, Canada and Argentina, it has the capacity to process and pack over 25,000 tonnes of honey each year. At home in Australia, Capilano Honey is the market leader and over the last 50 years the Capilano name has become synonymous in every household with premium quality Australian honey. For a company of this calibre, however, quality assurance extends beyond the product itself: Capilano Honey insists that their product packaging also meets stringent quality controls.

The innovative twist and squeeze pack is used by Capilano Honey for a number of its honey products. An integral component of the pack is the spout which forms the seal for the honey container. An incorrectly assembled spout compromises the seal integrity of the pack giving rise to the possibility of production contamination. Product spillages and recalls can be costly for any company and for Capilano Honey the risk to its highly regarded reputation was also not one it was willing to take. Its seal fault detection system had to get it right every time.

The problem with people

No manual operation is infallible; a manual system is always vulnerable to a degree of human error. At the Capilano Honey packaging facility in Richlands (Brisbane), Queensland, the assembly of each cap and base was traditionally checked manually before being dispatched to the filling line. With an assembly rate of one spout per second operators needed to work quickly to weed out any incorrectly assembled spouts; and no two operators’ judgement of a ‘good’ or a ‘bad’ spout is ever the same. As a result incorrectly assembled spouts were not always detected and required reworking further down the production line.

A case for automation

Machinery Automation & Robotics’ (MAR) approach to the seal inspection project at Capilano Honey was simple. Use advanced technology to create a compact and easily integrated solution. The result is the Cognex Insight 5100 vision system and complementary lighting system – a fully automated solution that eliminates the need for operators to manually check the accuracy of spout assembly.

The visreject systemion system at work

The Cognex Insight 5100 inspection system installed on the Capilano Honey indexing machine inspects for correct cap placement on the product selected before being dispatched to the filling line. With the margin between a correctly and incorrectly assembled spout being just fractions of a millimetre, a high degree of accuracy is required from the vision system for detection of the cap outline. To assist in this the lighting solution selected by MAR is a 24VDC light intensity controlled backlight. The backlight provides a silhouette effect on the part to be inspected by the vision system; this, in turn, provides an extremely accurate image to be captured by the Insight camera’s measurement tools. Accurate positioning of the vision tools themselves is also critical if the system is to effectively sample the gap, if one exists, between the cap and the base.

Equipped with ‘Best in Industry’ vision tools the Cognex Insight performs the task effortlessly with a speed of operation capable of sampling an impressive 900-1000 inspections per minute: many times more than the 300 parts per minute inspection rate previously required by this application.

Adding up the benefits

For a large-scale company where maintaining a reputation for quality is of paramount importance this surprisingly compact fault detection vision system solution delivers a number of benefits to Capilano Honey including:

 Technology at work for Capilano Honey

The Cognex Insight 5100 vision sensor was selected for its impressive 640 x 480 pixel resolution capable of operating at a speed of 60F/sec

 

Ricegrowers’ Co-operative Limited

Rice moves full steam ahead along newly automated conveyors.

RG Plant

Processing and marketing more than 1.5 million tonnes of paddy rice annually Ricegrowers’ Co-operative Limited is currently one of Australia’s most successful vertically-integrated agribusinesses. The official opening in 2002 of a new packaging plant marked an exciting expansion phase for the co-operative which markets high quality rice foods and by-products to consumers both Australia-wide and globally. The fully automated plant located at Leeton Mill in NSW replaced the co-operative’s existing operation and was part of Ricegrowers’ drive to achieve the highest standards of customer service, quality and safety. Integral to the successful operation of the new plant are six new production lines. J.L Lennard engineering supplied the equipment necessary for the smooth product flow from the production lines to the palletisers and local systems integrator Machinery Automation & Robotics Pty Ltd were contracted to automate the 34 new motors powering the accumulation conveyors to the six high-speed rice-packing machines and the two palletisers.

Each of the six production lines conveys multiple products of differing bag sizes and varying production times. With the variables of bag size and priority products directly affecting conveyor speed, precise control of the newly automated conveyors is critical. With this in mind MAR completed the line control automation to ensure a range of products could be efficiently stored and conveyed to the two new palletisers at high speed. This, in turn, ensured that the bagging and production lines were operating at full capacity one hundred percent of the time. Conveyor speeds are continuously trimmed via the Profibus control and variable speed drives.

Rice Growers

The control system is based on the Siemens S7-300 to complement existing control equipment on Ricegrowers’ site. The 34 SEW conveyor motor movimots are controlled by the Profibus network. Likewise, field sensors installed to detect product flow are fed back to the PLC via the Profibus nodes, minimising cabling on site. The operator interface is a Siemens OP screen, which ensures that operators holding the correct password are able to easily access recipe selection and modifications. The flexibility of the Profibus network also ensures that complete fault displays and motor running conditions are accessible.

Working closely with JL Lennard Pty Ltd who provided a turnkey installation for Ricegrowers’ packaging plant. MAR’s brief included functional specification and control, system design, CAD drawings, panel construction, PLC and HMI programming, bench testing and full site installation and commissioning.

Ricegrowers’ new packaging plant has resulted in a fully automated control solution requiring no operator input from the early stages of packaging right through to the palletizing when the final rice product is ready for delivery. As JL Lennard’s NSW Manager for Packaging Tony Dinallo explains: ‘with six high-speed production lines converging into just two palletisers, an effective interface is critical. We commissioned MAR to do the job because we knew they would achieve a professional outcome in completing the critical interface - and they did.’