To allow customers to buy containers in batches that meet their needs, many glass manufacturers produce smaller batches. This, however, results in frequent, time-consuming and inefficient job changes, due to the short production times involved. A solution to this predicament is assortment production, which involves producing more than one type of container on one production line. This decreases the frequency of job changes, thus resulting in a lot of otherwise expensive time being used for production rather than standstills for job changes. Bertram Ekektrotechnik has developed the Separator, an image processing system with up to three cameras, which can detect even the smallest differences between products, ensuring that each product is always sent to the correct track.
