“Labelling a wine bottle is one of the most difficult tasks there is in the wine industry short of making wine,” says Greg Creamer, director of quality control and assurance at TricorBraun WinePak. “When I see a bottle of wine on the shelf, that’s the face of my customer. It has to stand out.”
TricorBraun WinePak provides quality assurance
Creamer provides technical support to TricorBraun WinePak, one of the largest distributors of rigid packaging for the wine, spirits and beer industry in North America. His job is to help customers with quality issues related to glass and packaging. He draws on his experience working in wineries, and his expertise in glass quality to help his customers turn out products that turn heads.
“About 40 percent of the time I get a phone call, it's related to wrinkling of labels and poor label application,” he says. “When I show up at your winery, we start looking for what’s causing the issues – either the glass or a mechanical issue. While I'm with the customer trying to solve the problem, my team behind me is trying to come up with a solution for alternative glass, or alternative options.”
Glass production requires tremendous precision. Molten glass starts out at around 2800 degrees Fahrenheit. By the time it is in the mold to be shaped, it has cooled to 1900 degrees. When it hits the table as a finished wine bottle and heads down the line, it is still warm and soft at 800-850 degrees. In a high efficiency, rapid production environment, perfection is a difficult goal to attain.
“The glass industry can not make a round bottle. They look round, they are close to round, but they are not perfect. In order to get as close as they can, and be as profitable as they can, they've come up with acceptable quality limits or AQLs,” Creamer explains.
AQLs define the acceptable production limits for everything from minor cosmetic issues to critical safety defects. High tech optical inspection equipment and on-site inspectors monitor production lines, and examine bottles for faults. TricorBraun WinePak works with their suppliers around the globe to ensure the highest quality product by inspecting and testing glass onsite at all factories, and regularly evaluating the glass inspectors.
Cosmetic defects don’t look aesthetically perfect, but do not affect the structural integrity of the product. Minor defects include slight marks on the bottle, washboarding (several horizontal lines on the glass), seam imperfections, and stones, or small fragments of materials left behind from the production process. These minor variations are a natural part of glass production, and are limited to 2.5 to 4 percent of production according to the AQLs.
Major quality issues include defects in the glass that could potentially break the bottle, create leaking, capping or corking problems, or could disrupt production line speed or shut it down. Critical defects are things that could cause bodily harm, including a broken finish or glass fused to the internal or external surface of the glass. These kinds of faults typically result in product recalls.
With stringent safety and quality inspections in place, it is unlikely to encounter bottles with major or critical defects.
“The biggest issues we have in the wine industry are out of round (OOR) and sink/bulge,” says Creamer. “Sink/bulge is probably the number one cause of issues in the industry due to wrinkled labels.”
Out of round is condition where the bottle is slightly oval in shape, and that makes it very difficult to label a bottle properly. Sink/bulge is a spot in the bottle that has a small sink in it or bulge. Both conditions are difficult to detect in production, but are controlled with regular mechanical and human monitoring.
As a distributor, TricorBraun WinePak has a number of quality assurance measures in place to ensure that glass arrives to their customers ready to fill. When there are issues, they provide the expertise to find the cause and help get their customers back on track.
“When I show up, I'm coming to help our customer. I’m not there to tell them they are wrong or throw another supplier under the bus. I'm here to help you get through a difficult situation,” says Creamer. “What we bring to the table is a service that is pretty much unmatched in our industry. Ninety-five percent of the time we find a way to make it work.”
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