Empty Bottle Inspection AI

Add a real-time inspection layer to every empty bottle with vision AI for empty bottle inspection. Built for the operations where one chipped sealing surface means the cap never seals, a returnable with a straw and two cigarette butts makes it through the washer, or the check crack nobody caught bursts at filling pressure and stops the line while glass gets chased out of everything nearby. Whether you're running returnable glass through a washer, new glass from the cold end, or PET into a filler, Roboflow inspects every container before it costs you product, with per-bottle records and mold-level trends behind every reject.

Finish, Sidewall, and Base Defects:

• Catch chips and cracks on the sealing surface, the finish defects that turn into leakers and capper jams
• Detect check marks, stones, blisters, and stress cracks in sidewalls and bases before filling pressure finds them
• Flag deformed, leaning, and out-of-family bottles that jam star wheels and burst in the filler

Returnables: Foreign Objects and Residue:

• Detect foreign objects and residual liquid in returnable bottles after the washer, before they meet product
• Catch label, foil, and glue residue that survived the caustic bath, so relabeling starts on clean glass
• Grade scuffing on returnables consistently, separating normal trip wear from bottles due for retirement

Lines, Rejects, and Systems Integration:

• Inspect at washer discharge, filler infeed, and the cold end, with rejects driven in real time through PLC integration
• Trend defects by mold number on new glass, so a cracked mold at the glass plant shows up as a pattern, not a mystery
• Keep per-bottle records with imagery that support HACCP glass-control documentation and incident investigations

Bring intelligence to every bottle today. Stop empty bottle defects from becoming filler bursts, contamination holds, or glass-in-product recalls.

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More About Empty Bottle Inspection

What is empty bottle inspection with Vision AI?

Empty bottle inspection with vision AI uses computer vision models to inspect containers before filling: chips and cracks on the sealing surface, sidewall and base defects, foreign objects and residual liquid in returnables, label and glue residue, and deformed or out-of-family bottles. Models trained on your actual containers inspect at washer discharge, filler infeed, and the cold end, with per-bottle records and reject integration that support HACCP glass-control programs.

Can Vision AI inspect clear glass at filling line speeds?

Clear glass is the hard case: defects that refract rather than reflect, a sealing surface a few millimeters wide moving at line speed, and returnables whose honest trip wear looks like damage to a rule-based system. Deep-learning models trained on your actual bottles and lighting learn how chips, checks, and residue actually present in your glass, hold that judgment across clear, amber, and green containers, and flag borderline bottles for rejection review instead of guessing. Inspection points and camera counts are sized to your line speed during solution design, from craft lines to high-speed fillers.

How does this fit with the dedicated EBI machine on our line?

Dedicated empty bottle inspectors stay where they're installed and doing their job. Vision AI extends the same inspection intent to the lines and points those machines never reach: craft and mid-speed lines that can't justify a dedicated EBI, washer discharge on returnable lines, cold end inspection at the glass plant, and secondary checkpoints after depalletizing. It also adds what most installed EBIs don't: models trained on your specific containers, mold-number trending across runs, and per-bottle imagery records feeding your quality systems.

Can it integrate with our line PLCs, rejects, and MES?

Yes. Roboflow Inference exposes a standard API and supports common industrial protocols, so bottle inspection events flow into your existing systems: line PLCs from Allen-Bradley and Siemens driving rejects, MES and ERP platforms like SAP and Oracle, and SCADA and HMI platforms like Ignition and AVEVA, through REST, MQTT, OPC UA, and direct database writes. PLC-level integration rejects a flagged bottle before it reaches the filler, and every event carries line, lane, mold number where read, timestamp, and imagery, with a full audit trail behind every shift.

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