Unilever automates Rexona deodorant quality inspection at 220 bottles per minute

Unilever's Philippines facility faced increasing production demand for Rexona deodorant, requiring up to 10 operators per line for manual quality checks including cap integrity, cap color, date code validation, label alignment, and barcode verification. At 220 bottles per minute, manual inspection was increasingly unrealistic and resulted in high reject volumes from poorly aligned or wrinkled labels.

Unilever deployed a three-camera Cognex In-Sight inspection system: an overhead color camera for cap presence/integrity, cap color, and date code validation; a front-facing color camera for label alignment and product label color verification; and a rear camera for barcode reading and product code verification. Integrator Inzpect Technologies built custom lighting for the reflective bottle surfaces and a GUI for simultaneous multi-camera monitoring.

The system fully automated the quality check process, enabling 100% inspection at line speed. Labor was redeployed from manual inspection to other mission-critical tasks on the production floor. Overall product quality improved. After successful implementation on the first line, Unilever replicated the solution to two additional lines.

• Machine vision can replace up to 10 manual operators per line while improving inspection quality
• Custom lighting solutions are critical for inspecting reflective packaging surfaces
• Successful vision system deployments naturally expand to additional production lines