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MARCH/APR I L 2003A CLB MEDIA PUBL ICAT ION

M A N U F A C T U R I N G

M A C H I N E D E S I G N • S Y S T E M S • T E C H N O L O G Y

BREW-HA-HA!Steam Whistle is laughing all the way to

the bank with its money-saving bottleinspection system ...14

BREW-HA-HA!Steam Whistle is laughing all the way to

the bank with its money-saving bottleinspection system ...14

MA.Mar.03 6/11/04 10:21 AM Page 1

BY ALISON DUNN

Colin Cartwright never watchesthe City TV program BreakfastTelevision. In fact, he’s proba-

bly only seen the popular Torontomorning show twice in the eight yearshe’s lived in Toronto. But if Cartwright,a corporate accounts specialist withOmron Canada, hadn’t caught theshow one morning before he left forwork, he would have missed a greatopportunity to help one company’sautomation process.

One of Breakfast Television’s “rov-ing reporters” was broadcasting aremote location shoot from the SteamWhistle beer brewery in downtownToronto. While Cartwright was watch-ing the show, he picked up on some-thing in the background that the aver-age viewer might not have noticed. Hesaw two women sitting in front of awhite light, manually inspecting eachand every freshly-washed beer bottlethat came down the line.

Cartwright knew there was a muchbetter way to inspect the bottles. Thenext day, he called Cameron Heaps,president of Steam Whistle. The timingcouldn’t have been better. Heaps wasputting the pressure on his employeesto find ways to streamline their bot-tling system. “We had been throwing inthe towel on [the idea of automated]inspection because of the cost, so itwas pretty exciting being able to possi-bly get a solution,” he says.

The big breweries in Canada andthe U.S. have been using high-techmachine vision systems to inspect theirbottles for years. Typically, these

machines can cost upwards of$600,000. They have a lot of bells andwhistles, but it’s tough for a small ormedium- sized brewery to afford one.Instead, Steam Whistle settled formanual inspection.

The Steam Whistle cleaning andinspecting process has recycled bottlesgoing through a high-tech bottle wash-er. At the time Cartwright called SteamWhistle, the bottles went through thewasher, and then two people manuallyinspected each bottle.

Still, debris still manages to find itsway through. Some of the most com-mon items the inspectors find in thebottles are bent bottle caps and clearplastic wrap. The job of inspecting thebottles was most employees’ “leastfavourite [work] station,” says Heaps.All employees, including Heaps him-self, were required to sit and inspectbottles for 20 to 45 minutes at a timeon a shift.

Inspecting the bottles before theyare filled makes good financial sense.

Although the bottles are also inspectedafter being filled, pre-inspection ensuresthat dirty bottles don’t make it to the fill-ing stage – meaning less wasted beer.

But Steam Whistle’s inspectionprocess was far from foolproof. Anyprocess where two human beings stareat empty beer bottles will increase theroom for error. People can get tired,which makes it harder to peer at thebottles for long periods of time. Also,as Heaps says, some people are betterat the inspecting process than others.

Cartwright thought his team couldcome up with an automated system forSteam Whistle that wouldn’t break the

bank. He set up a meetingwith Heaps and SteamWhistle’s maintenancemanager, Charlie Mifsud.Cartwright convinced thepair to let him take somebottles back to his officeto do some preliminarytests using Omron’s F150vision system.

Steam Whistle gaveCartwright samples ofboth clean and dirty bot-tles for the testing process.Cartwright turned up aweek later and carried outa live demonstration.

Mifsud and Heaps then tried their owntests, simulating what they typicallyfind in dirty bottles on the line – put-ting Saran wrap inside, Saran wrapover the top and all kinds of differentscenarios. “Every one that they tried,our vision system caught,” saysCartwright.

They sat down and worked out abudget, and it was time to get to work.Cartwright brought in BenjaminHawks, a vision systems specialist withOmron. The pair worked closely withMifsud, who they credit with creatingmuch of the final product’s design.“Charlie was the one who put every-thing together,” says Cartwright. “Wehelped him with the programming andstuff like that, but all the mechanicalprocess and inspection was Charlie.”

The completed inspection systemworks by having the bottle come downthe production line into somethingcalled a “star wheel.” The star wheelsuspends the bottle above the conveyorby means of a small vacuum. Thewheel then passes the bottle under thecamera, while the camera takes a pic-ture. The camera is the eyes and brainsof the system, but the star wheel andvacuum make up an integral part of thecomplete inspection machine.

Fractions of a second later, the sys-tem will decide if a bottle is eithergood or bad. The system then tells thestar wheel where to place the bottles.The good bottles will continue theirway down the conveyor for filling,and the bad bottles will be diverted toa separate conveyor for a SteamWhistle employee to collect at the endof the day.

Mifsud cobbled together the sys-tem almost entirely using sampleOmron parts that Cartwright andHawks keep in their cars to showpotential customers. “The sensor thatis on [Steam Whistle’s vision system]right now is a sample,” saysCartwright. “We were trying to get asignal, and we needed a sensor. I said,‘Hang on. I’m just going to my car.’The sample is still in there.”

Once Mifsud created the system, he

had to work it into the production line.“The biggest issue was actually gettingthe bottle off the line so the systemcould look at it with a light below,”Cartwright says. “That’s where Charlieapplied the star wheel, and rebuilt it.”

Next, they conducted tests inMifsud’s workshop on the machinebefore it got put on the line. At the endof last year, it was finally ready andMifsud got it integrated into the pro-duction line. “It’s very, very reliable.It’s working out,” says Cartwright.

The bottles that the system divertsare checked at the end of the day. If it’sjust dirt in the bottles they are runthrough the washer again. The SteamWhistle staff also manually removesbent bottle caps, paper, plastic wrap,potato chip bags and other debris inotherwise intact bottles and runs them

through the washer again. If it’s adefective bottle, it is destroyed.

The whole process took Omronand Steam Whistle about 10 months tocomplete. Heaps, for one, says he’shappy with the results. “We get muchbetter accuracy with the machine. Ihate to say it, but in this case, themachine is better.”

In the end, the project cost SteamWhistle less than $20,000. And boththe Steam Whistle team and their ven-dor remain grateful to a different kindof vision that brought them together— television.

“If it wasn’t for the BreakfastTelevision spot, none of this wouldhave happened,” says Heaps.

Alison Dunn is the editor ofManufacturing AUTOMATION.

March/April 2003 www.automationmag.com

Machine vision

BREW-HA-HA!Steam Whistle Brewing is laughing all theway to the bank with its money-savingbottle inspection system

Charlie Mifsud and Cameron Heaps show off part of the production line at the Steam Whistle brewery.

Maintenance manager Charlie Mifsud demonstrates how bottle caps, or crowns, canremain in the bottle after washing.

With the old manual inspection system, Steam Whistle shone a white light behind thebottles to check for debris.

The new inspection system uses a monitor to show anydebris in the bottom of the bottles.

Anabel Fernandez, Steam Whistle’s Quality Control Coordinator, demonstrates howshe used to manually inspect the bottles.

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