CAM-201

Bottles piling up on the accumulation table

Mid-afternoon. The filler’s accumulation table has overflowed: hundreds of juice bottles have packed together until they block each other, and several have fallen on their side. Two operators in white coats and hairnets are leaning over the table, pushing the bottles by hand to break the pile up. Behind them the overhead conveyor keeps bringing product that has nowhere to go. Other colleagues watch from the aisle, at a distance.

CAM-201 · ACCUM TABLE · BOTTLE JAM

What IRIS understands

What it recognises in this scene

bottles packed on the table
operator pushing the bottles
second operator clearing the table
overhead conveyor still bringing product
bottles queued before the table

What this camera measures

An alert says something is happening. The reading says how much.

164Bottles held on the table
2 min 10 sTime building up
9Bottles fallen on their side
2People clearing the jam
15:20Time of the alert

The figures on this screen are an example from the illustration, not any client's measurement.

The rule

You decide once. IRIS applies it always.

bottles build up on the table and stop moving on to the next station

Then

alert the line supervisor with the camera and the time
save the video from the moment the product began to build up
count how long the jam lasts until the table clears

The instruction that set it up«Tell me when bottles pile up on the accumulation table and stop moving forward.»

What changes

What changes for whoever answers for the plant

A jam like this takes two minutes to clear if somebody sees it, and twenty if nobody is looking at that corner. When it overflows, bottles end up on the floor and the cleaning takes longer than the stop itself. IRIS raises the alert while it is happening, with the camera and the time, and saves the video of the moment the product began to pile up. The line supervisor stops finding out by the noise and stops arriving when the floor is already covered.

What people usually ask

How does IRIS tell a jam from normal accumulation?

By movement. A table full of bottles that are advancing is normal; a table full of bottles that have not moved for a while is not. The plant decides how many seconds without moving turn that into an alert, and from there IRIS times it. It guesses nothing: it looks at whether the product moves or does not move.

Does it work for cans, trays and boxes or only for bottles?

It works for whatever runs on that belt. The rule does not look at what the pack is: it looks at whether the stream of product stops and bunches up where it should not. The same camera covers cans, trays, boxes or packs, and it is the plant that defines which stretch it applies to and with what threshold.

Can IRIS stop the belt when it detects the jam?

No. IRIS alerts, it does not act: it does not stop a belt and it does not send anybody anywhere. It delivers the alert with the camera, the time and the video, and the person in charge of the line decides what to do. That separation is deliberate: the responsibility for stopping a machine stays where it belongs.

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