Owens-illinois, Inc.

Mark B Schenk

Paul W Graham

Alan D Ahl

Joseph F Billmaier

Stephen H Zylka

A completely automated system for inspection and sorting of molded containers, such as glass bottles, as a function of mold cavity of container origin. In a first system section, finished containers are one hundred percent inspected for defects, and a cavity identification device is controlled to reject all containers from cavities associated with defective containers. The cavity identification device is also coupled to feed sampled containers from selected cavities to an automatic sampling indexer wherein the sampled containers are fed to one or more stations for testing physical container properties, such as rupture pressure, wall thickness and internal volume. The cavity identification device and the automatic sampling indexer are controlled by a hierarchy of interconnected computers which receive cavity and test information from the various sections and stations of the system and control the sampling and sorting process based upon predetermined quality standards. A cavity map is maintained which relates cavity code to physical location in the container forming machine to help identify quality control trends.

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Lexington, KY, United States of America

Mark B Schenk