APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR CONTROLLING THE INSPECTION OF FINISHED PRODUCTS

摘要

A finished product controller is disclosed for monitoring the performance of a glassware production line and the bottle inspection equipment operating thereon. Bottles are formed in molds which impress an identifying code unique to each mold in each formed bottle. Bottles leaving the forming machine are fed to one of several inspection loops. A primary inspection loop includes means for inspecting the bottles fed to it for defects and means for reading the identifying code on those bottles. One or more secondary inspection loops are provided for inspecting the rest of the bottles for defects only. A computer correlates the detected defects in the bottles passing through the primary inspection loop to the defective mold which produced them and acquires defect data on the secondary loops. A cavity reject ratio is calculated for each defect and compared to a predetermined value to alert a forming operator to a defective cavity. The reject ratios are totaled for each defect and the ratio for each defect from each loop is compared to the corresponding ratio from the other loops -to identify malfunctioning inspection devices. Located downstream of all of the inspection loops is a means for reading the identifying codes of all the inspected bottles. In the alternative, the downstream reader can sense the presence of bottles formed in a particular mold which has been determined in the primary inspection loop to be defective, and the computer can alert maintenance personnel to locate and correct the defective inspection equipment in one of the secondary inspection loops.