Hassia Mineralquellen also recently faced the challenge of replacing the “old” green GDB bottle with the “new” white GDB-N2 bottle – and together with their partner vision-tec they have developed an idea that is as simple as it is innovative:

Hassia has been using a vision-tec sorting robot for more than 5 years now. Previously, the robot was only responsible for sorting the bottles in the crates. Now the question arose as to whether it could not also be used for the new task. If you do have the wrong bottle in your hand (or in the packing tulips), why not dispose of it immediately and replace it with the new bottle? And this in the ongoing sorting process for the returning empties? No new machines, no additional work processes. The idea simply had charm. And was implemented in exactly this way.

For this purpose, the existing crate inspection systems were equipped with the future-oriented GDB inspection technology from vision-tec. With the additional inspection module with inclined arranged camera systems, the bottle contours of the GDB bottle “old” and the GDB bottle “new” are reliably distinguished from one another.

The sorting robot has been extended to include a new glass infeed. The GDB-N2 bottles coming from the new glass feeder run onto the new bottle conveyor in the robot. At first they run in the direction of the crates, are deflected by 180° at the end of the robot and return on the adjacent belt against the direction of crate travel, so that practically “double the space” (and “double the time”) is available for the removal of the new glass bottles. In this way, crates filled with GDB-N2 bottles are now produced during the sorting process.

The “old” (green) bottles are either collected in the crate, where the required crates are provided by the empty crate feeder, or the bottles are disposed of by a built-in discharge conveyor. These bottles can be transported away via the conveyor for disposal.

No new machines, no additional work processes. And furthermore a cost-effective alternative that the company can also use flexibly for the future. Hassia is more than satisfied with the solution.

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As in previous years, we met for a summer party in good weather and good food.
Many thanks to the whole team and to all planners and helpers!

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The Genossenschaft Deutscher Brunnen (GDB) has developed a new graceful white glass bottle. The new “N2” bottle is almost identical to its predecessor, the white “Perlenflasche”, both in height and diameter, so that it can be filled by all members in existing plants without any major changes. A distinction between the two bottles is only possible on the basis of the contour.

In order to recognize the contour of this bottle in the crate and thus enable effective (pre-)sorting, a method had to be developed which realizes a high-contrast, easily evaluable image of the bottle to be recognized per row in the crate.

The company vision-tec gmbh from Kassel, best known among the breweries for its patented multi-camera system for the inspection of individual bottles, has now developed a special procedure including suitable evaluation software for exactly this task. In addition to differentiating between the “old” and the “new” GDB white glass bottles, individual bottles with significant contour differences are also detected with an accuracy of over 99 %.

A further advantage of the system: existing AFG inspections from vision-tec can be easily retrofitted with the new module.

With this innovation, vision-tec shows once again that the development of inspection technology can keep pace with the new creations of the market!

Inspection examples:

Differentiation GDB old new

Differentiation individual bottles

The Brewing and Beverage Industry INTERNATIONAL reports in issue 5/2018 about the modern recognition technology and robotics in the sorting of the Paderborn brewery. There, a complete sorting and repackaging system for up to seven crate respectively bottle types was created in a minimum of space with an automatic guided vehicle taking care of the supply and disposal of all edge types. In the process, pallet transport was almost completely waived, and an employee-independent supply and disposal of the system was ensured > article (PDF).

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Also this year we organized a summer party together.
Many thanks to all helpers and to our great team!

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