APPE (Wrexham / UK; www.appepackaging.com), the packaging division of La Seda de Barcelona (Barcelona / Spain; www.laseda.es), has invested EUR 1.5m to develop and install “Sample-PreWatcher” technology from Intravis (Aachen / Germany; www.intravis.de) for the automatic inspection of the key quality parameters of preforms. APPE has now introduced the technology across all its major manufacturing plants.

“Sample-PreWatcher” technology replaces manual inspection and provides an automated, rapid and more in-depth analysis of preforms by carrying out a complete visual inspection, colour analysis, cavity number recognition and neck dimension examination. The technology has been developed further by Intravis and APPE’s European quality team to include weight control, thread-flash analysis and wall thickness variation.

Billy Jansen, APPE’s group QSE and sustainability manager, said: “This off-line tool provides rapid analysis of key preform quality parameters. It supports APPE’s operational and quality teams with fast and accurate data at the most critical periods of production, namely start-up and process interruptions, as well as routine quality activity.”

Intravis has previously developed applications that are now extensively used by APPE, including a “ColourWatcher” system, which ensures preform colour consistency, “PreWatcher” for high speed preform selection, and “BottleWatcher” for container inspection.