Počítačový tomograf optimalizuje zajištění kvality ve společnosti Greiner pro výrobu obalů

Defective packaging can severely damage a manufacturer's reputation and image. That is why quality regulations for packaging have assumed massive proportions – even though each piece of packaging costs just a few cents or even less. In the past, Greiner Packaging, headquartered in Kremsmünster, Austria, performed manual inspections with gauges and other devices to determine if the capsules met the customers' requirements. The process took a lot of time, effort and concentration, because just touching a capsule incorrectly can cause pressure marks and thus falsify the measuring result. As the customers continued to stipulate additional inspection parameters, Helmut Reckziegel, Head of the Capsules business unit, decided to look for an efficient solution for inspecting the capsules during the quality assurance process.  

It used to be the case that inspecting eight parameters manually took 45 minutes; now 16 can be measured in half a second with the CT scanner. The solution has almost tripled employees' productivity in Quality Inspection. For Quality Engineer Robert Pfundbauer, this increase in speed is desirable, impressive and also reduces costs. But for him, it all comes down to safety, and thus the question that should be asked is: "How probable is a recall caused by packaging, i.e. the worst-case scenario for Greiner customers?" Since these days twice as many parameters are tested than before and with far greater precision, Pfundbauer thinks the likelihood is almost zero. Summing up his experiences with the new system, Pfundbauer reports: "This machine is what every quality expert dreams of."