Ceepackaging

Technology

Quality after the goods have left the premises

For Ardagh Glass, one of the world’s leading glass container manufacturers, supply chain efficiency has long been a significant key performance indicator. An experienced team of customer service managers spend a great deal of their time on customers’ filling lines and in warehouses. By swiftly and accurately reporting any issues that may cause downtime or damage, they can help forestall any future problems.

Now Ardagh has gone one step further to the very heart of the filling line itself – the place where customer service managers would fear to tread.

Ardagh has introduced the use of a  “smart bottle” supplied by Canadian company Sensor Wireless that helps identify quality issues on the filling line. A replica of the real bottle that is to be filled at its customer’s packaging line, the smart bottle contains active wireless sensors that, when placed on a filling line alongside “real bottles”, constantly transmits real time quality monitoring data to a remote handheld computer.

The smart bottle has already been used successfully in recent lightweieghting developments and new product launches with key brand owners.

The benefit to brand owners is the ability to  track what is happening to their products throughout the filling lines in terms of the impact, vibration and temperature. This instant data enables them to immediately identify problems and act accordingly. Quick action helps reduce waste in the supply chain and avoid expensive downtime as lines have to be re-set.

Ardagh’s John Parkes, Group Quality Director explains: “ The growth of new generation much lighter weight containers – often of complex design – to meet environmental and marketing needs, combined with faster and faster filling lines, presents a real challenge to us and our customers.

“ This wireless sensor technology represents a real advance to line auditing, and gives us the level of line speed control and synchronisation necessary to meet the highest quality specification even with ultra lightweight containers.”

Consider this as Ardagh’s eyes and ears on its customers’ filling lines. “Rather like having a spy in the right place, albeit a very benevolent one,” says Parkes. .

It’s no surprise the sensor system is called “Agent QC”.