Cap over-torqueing issue

Problem: Systematic hourly cap torque testing was omitted for a couple of hours at a 30-40.000 bottle/hour beverage production line. In the meanwhile, on the 20-head capper one of the capper heads started to over-torque the closures,

Result: When the over-torqueing issue was noticed, the line was producing every 20th bottle with unacceptable high release torque since hours. Line was stopped immediately as they noticed the issue, but they already had over 100.000 palletized uncertain bottles in the warehouse – a mixture of 5% over-torqued and 95% good product. Quality control did not release these products out on the market. They had 2 choices: waste over 100.000 bottles of beverage or try to save the good 95%.

Solution: After short consideration they purchased 2 ST-LAB automatic torque testers and they ran release-application tests on all the over 100.000 bottles. They managed to separate the 5% with too high release torque and quarantined them until further decision. The faultless 95% was released on the market.
Conclusion: With saving over 100.000 bottles from waste, the company saved a lot of money and they escaped from losing their production targets. Taken in account the cost of the torque testers and the labor of the testing, the saving on the saved products exceeded the investment.

Conclusion: With using the automatic torque testers they keep on saving 20 tested samples per hour from wasting (about 100.000 bottles / line / year).

Capper machine chuck issue

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