Challenges

1. Bulk Density Causes Batch Mixing Issues

This product was a mix of four active ingredients, one flavor ingredient, and the rest was filled with water by the consumer. The consumer would fill with water and shake the bottle to mix ingredients. Due to the different bulk densities of each of the five ingredients, if the mixture was made in a traditional batch environment, the different ingredients would separate and would not contain the correct amounts of the five active ingredients.

The Solution:

Since a traditional batch mix would not work, an unconventional mixing method was used by mixing the four active ingredients and one flavor ingredient in each bottle.

A bottle would move to the first head and receive appropriate amount of the first ingredient. It would then index down to each of the other four heads and repeat until all five ingredients were filled in the bottle. This method guaranteed that each bottle had just the right amount of each ingredient.

2. Both Camera & Human Visual Quality Control

Each bottle needed both camera and human visual human inspection prior to being placed in a case.

The Solution:

A Cognex camera vision system inspected the bottle cap and checked that the bottle had received the correct label prior to sending it on to be visually inspected at the packing station.

API provided a semi-automatic case packing station where an operator would review each bottle, acknowledge it passed by pressing a pass button located at the case packing station, and place the bottle into the case.

Once a case was full the operator would push a button and the case would move into the case sealer to be sealed. This electronic verification tracked which operator was logged into the system at the time and time-stamped each case, keeping each operator accountable for their work.

Result