Space-saving empty bottle inspection

A simple easy retrofit of a modern empty bottle inspector? This is also possible for small and medium-sized companies with limited space, such as the German private brewery Raab in Hofheim, Lower Franconia.

He wants to “give his customers safety”. They should know that “everything is in order” and that the beer and beverage specialities from his family-run brewery can be enjoyed “with peace of mind and without any problems” by their fans in the Franconian Haßberge region and beyond. It is therefore important to Michael Raab to “offer them top quality. We want that 100 percent!”

For the third-generation owner, this naturally applies above all to the brewing process at the Raab private brewery in Hofheim. Instead of “mass-produced beer, which has had all its rough edges sanded off”, his daughter, master brewer Caroline Raab, produces very special beers with character and profile there. From the light and quaffable ‘Landbier’ to the full-bodied ‘Frangn Seidla’, from the delicately dry Pils to the malty Dark Beer, the unpasteurised Raab products impress with a variety, individuality and quality that usually only medium-sized brewers can offer.

Gapless empty bottle inspection

When bottling in environmentally friendly returnable glass bottles, safety and quality are also given the highest priority by the Raabs. Thus, the refillable 0.5 litre Euro and NRW bottles and the 0.33 litre Gourmet beer bottles made of amber glass must also meet the exacting standards of the brewing family 100 per cent. The same applies to the white 0.5-litre Euro containers which hold a total of ten different self-produced soft drinks as well as sparkling and still table waters of the ‘Raabella’ brand.

The family-owned brewery invested in a HEUFT InLine ^II IR empty bottle inspector two years ago to ensure their integrity fully automatically. It inspects every single refillable container without a gap from the base to the finish for glass defects, foreign objects and other safety and quality defects before filling. The compact HEUFT flip rejection system removes any faulty empties from the production flow.

Compact system, great detection performance

According to Michael Raab it was not so easy to find the right equipment. The “very cramped conditions” in the medium-sized private brewery's existing bottling hall were challenging. He became aware of the HEUFT system which enables a complete inspection of the base, side wall and finish in a confined space due to good tips from Franconian brewer colleagues. "And, of course, we looked at a lot of inspectors" before settling on the leading supplier's space-saving, high-performance solution.  

“It was the best decision for us”, the brewery owner recalls. The compact empty bottle inspector “really detects everything that is in the bottles; cigarette butts, matches, tubes, no matter what is inside, even the smallest particles”. This of course also applies to caustic washing machine liquid residues which the HEUFT fluid module identifies on an HF basis. A special inspection ensures the correct infeed of the right empties before the HEUFT InLine ^II IR carries out an optical inspection of each individual bottle so that defects or inclusions in the walls of the bottles become visible amongst other things. “The detection performance is very good”, Raab confirms. “I would say almost 100 per cent.”

Full coverage with a small footprint

It was sufficient to equip the space-saving device with only one additional housing with clever special optics for sidewall inspection so that the inspection covers the full bottle volume with a line performance of 6,000 bottles per hour on site. All this can be achieved at even lower speeds and in less than one square metre of space without the need for an additional module. The installation gap into which the HEUFT team integrated the system at Raab is only slightly larger in comparison at just under 1.65 square metres.

"So, it worked wonderfully, even with regard to the installation”, the brewery manager is pleased to report. The fact that it could be installed in such a small space was just as important to him as reliable fault detection before the ‘Raab’ and ’Raabella’ returnable containers are filled. This applies in particular “to the thread inspection of the lemonade bottles so that I can look at each thread and also reject them if there is really only the smallest fraction that is not in order" – from glass breakage to interrupted finish threads, risks to the integrity and sealability of the white screw-top bottles are also reliably detected.

High level of expertise, comprehensive support

Michael Raab is “wonderfully satisfied” with HEUFT's development and solution expertise which can be seen for example in the base blower which was optimised on site and which increases the reliability of the foreign object detection at the base of the empty bottles even further. Or the reliable rejection of faulty products including reject verification. The same also applies to the HEUFT speedy conveyor control system which realises a continuous and harmonious infeed of the empty bottles to the inspector.

“The cooperation with the HEUFT company works wonderfully”, Michael Raab recalled. According to him “there really has not been anything up to now which we could not solve quickly together” thanks to efficient remote diagnostics and maintenance via HEUFT PhoneService and HEUFT TeleService.

Trusting cooperation, good prospects

The owner of the family-run brewery in Hofheim in Lower Franconia draws a 100 per cent positive overall conclusion almost two years after the installation and commissioning of the compact all-aurface empty bottle inspector: “I would do the project the same way again. I have been totally pleasantly surprised so far and hope it stays that way.”

The prospects in this respect are very good in view of the extensive support services and genuine long-term spare parts availability which HEUFT has to offer.