Read Consulting failure analysis experts were engaged to determine the source of damage to bottle finishes discovered on a bottling line. One of the damage types was side impact to the top of the bottle finish. It was determined that loading equipment with steel grips was impacting the bottle finish during loading the production line. Below are 2 photo-micro graphs of representative damage discovered on the production line. Solving manufacturing problems often starts with a root cause failure analysis. Once the nature of the damage is understood, the engineering personnel can review the process to find and eliminate the cause. In this case, a proposed solution is to coat the grips with compliant material.
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