At Pack Expo, Antares Vision Group, a leader in quality control and track and trace systems and a technology partner in product and supply chain digitalization for businesses and institutions, showcased its newest offerings for the food and beverage industry.
Inspection and serialization technologies to guarantee product quality and traceability, integrating control solutions on the production line with digital ones to guarantee transparency for the final consumer and traceability from the raw material to the finished product, to assure product authenticity. These elements are added to systems which, starting from the checks made, collect valuable information to enable informed decisions to be made and to increase quality and productivity.
ALL-IN-ONE: one solution, multiple inspections
To reconfirm the potential of the Antares Vision product range for Food & Beverage, at Pack Expo, the Group will present one of its cutting-edge products: ALL-IN-ONE, an innovative system that enables a variety of inspection solutions to be performed by a single machine. It represents a revolution in quality control for food production companies: the ALL-IN-ONE system, which can be seen at the stand, features a Leak Detection System (a module that detects micro-leaks in packaging), X-Rays – which identifies various types of contaminants such as glass, stones, metal, bone, high-density plastic, etc. also in the case of metallized polylaminate, tinplate, aluminium packaging and metal clips – and Checkweigher, a dynamic weighing unit installed on board.
Another version of ALL-IN-ONE checks the labels and codes (alphanumeric, QR Codes, Datamatrix etc.) on packaging, to verify their conformity in terms of presence, legibility, position, inclination and correspondence with the format in production, welding and printing integrity of QR codes on the production line. This system can be integrated with the Track & Trace platform, which manages serial numbers throughout the supply chain, enabling features to encourage customer engagement, to identify grey markets, for brand protection and the management of re-usable assets.
CAP-FILL level inspection
At Pack Expo, Antares Vision Group also presented the IT+CL 700-IoT system for integrated cap and fill level inspection, designed to guarantee the quality of the caps and the correct fill level, with a view to assuring consistent quality. The cap inspection unit is able to easily detect problems related to the closure, including the absence or misalignment of the cap, deformed or curved caps, missing or damaged tamper bands and upper surface deformities for various types of cap: flat, tethered, sport-cap, cork and roop. The system can incorporate between 2 and 5 high resolution cameras to meet different requirements. The CL700-IoT module detects the fill level inside the bottle, eliminating containers that do not comply with regulations. The inspection system is able to perform level control on every type of liquid and packaging by using the most effective technology for that specific application: X-Ray, Infrared and High Frequency (with foam compensation) and enables a long series of parameters on a wide range of product types to be checked, via a single control panel and in a particularly small footprint.
The importance of serialization
At Pack Expo, Antares Vision Group, showcased its offerings for the food and beverage industry. (photo: Antares Vision)
Serializing a product means assigning a univocal code to each unit that makes each product unique. This enables the manufacturer to perform specific activities to improve logistics, protect its brand and to create a direct relationship with the consumer. One of the applications linked to serialization (as well as being sustainable) proposed by Antares Vision Group is the Digital Deposit Return System (a system to return empty packaging that focuses in particular on recycling plastic), a solution that manages reusable and refillable PET bottles, product recalls, to guarantee product authenticity and the engagement of the final customer. In addition, thanks to an integrated hardware and software solution, Antares Vision Group simplifies the implementation and management of the serialization system due to the compatibility and integration of the various components. This guarantees data coherence at all levels of the platform, reducing the time and the costs of the implementation and maintenance of the serialization solution and guarantees more efficient technical assistance.
The integration of hardware and software also reduces the risk of error in data collection and processing to a minimum, as the systems are designed to work in synergy, therefore guaranteeing greater legislative compliance and better product traceability. The high-speed printing of the QR code on bottle caps is an application that Antares Vision Group is able to guarantee, also thanks to its extensive experience and knowledge of the food and beverage sector.
