CASE STUDY- GLASS BOTTLE MANUFACTURING PLANT
In the glass bottle manufacturing industry, the transition from manual labour to automation is often driven by the extreme nature of the product: glass is heavy, fragile, and hazardous.
Existing process is a manual process where there are more than 8 people are working on the same line to cope up with the incoming line speed usually 240 Bottles per minute. The space requirement is also high & the shift workers are getting changed every 8-12 hours which results in slow end of line packaging & loss of productivity.
PRODUCTION CHALLENGES
Manual handling of glass bottles presents three major risks that automation effectively eliminates:
Safety & Ergonomics:
Glass bottles are surprisingly heavy in bulk. A single person packing 20–30 bottles per minute into cartons faces repetitive strain injuries (RSI) and carpal tunnel. Additionally, the risk of "cullet" (broken glass) causes severe lacerations—a primary cause of worker compensation claims in this sector.
Product Integrity:
Human hands are inconsistent. A slight slip can cause "micro-cracks" (invisible to the eye) that lead to bottle explosions during the carbonation or hot-fill process at the customer’s site.
Contamination:
In industries like pharma or premium beverages, human contact increases the risk of hair, skin, or fabric fibers entering the packaging. Robots operate in "cleaner" states and don't require PPE that can shed particles.
BUSINESS IMPACT
While manual packing is cheaper on "Day 1," the Cost per Unit increases every year due to wage inflation. With automation, the cost per unit stays flat or decreases as the machine is depreciated.
MAS SYSTECH SOLUTION
We supplied tray packers for Glass bottle industry to cope up with the speed of incoming Glass bottles with the help of our IRCP (industrial robotic case packers)
CUSTOMIZATION APPLIED
We provided the solution inline with the current furnace. The glass bottles are picked & place in the trays to provide unique solution to their manual handling problems. We supplied the same machine for 11 different bottle SKU’s which stands out compared to competitors.
INSTALLATION PROCESS
The installation of the such equipment is simple & easy to use. We Installed the whole setup in 14 working days without stopping the lines.
As in glass industry you are not supposed to stop the glass production line.
The installed, commissioned & handed over to customer on 20th day.
CHALLENGES OVERCOME
If you implement a robotic pick and place system (using Delta or 6-axis robots) for bottle handling, your Return on Investment (ROI) is typically calculated across three pillars:
Productivity Gains
A robot doesn't take lunch breaks or shift-change pauses. In a 3-shift operation, a robot can provide 20–25% more uptime than a manual crew.
If your manual line produces 10 million bottles/year, a robot might push that to 12.5 million by simply never stopping.
Scrap and Rejection Reduction
Manual handling often results in a 1–2% breakage or scuff rate (damaging the "aesthetic" of the bottle). A robot with a vacuum or soft-touch gripper reduces this to nearly 0%.