Dec 9 2010
Applied Vision has collaborated with Sardee Industries to develop a first-ever machine vision inspection system to recognize physical impairments in plastic slide sheets utilized in material handing of food and beverage cans.
The ends of a plastic slip sheet can be damaged during the movement of platen under the slip sheet. This crack can probably prevent the slip sheet from being supplied to a palletizer or the palletizer may even get stuck. The exterior of the slip sheet can be torn or crumpled during rail and truck transportation as well as during life truck handling resulting in an increased cost-overhead. Further, manual inspection of slip sheets for cracks consumes a lot of time.
Returned slip sheets’ pallets are positioned on a Sardee handler, which automatically supplies every slip sheet to an Applied Vision inspection system. The automated inspection system features several camera systems of high resolution. Images are recorded concurrently to ascertain sheet integrity. Good sheets are separated from the damaged ones and are repacked for error-free loading into the palletizer.
By enhancing precision and speed of slip sheet inspection, Sardee and Applied Vision have enabled the developers of food and beverage containers to prevent jamming or mis-feeding of palletizers. In large scale operations, this inspection system enables one or two operators to achieve the same volume of tasks that needs more than five operators if performed by manual methods.