Insert and case-pack fragile returnable glass bottles into divided crates
On returnable-glass lines (still significant in many international Coca-Cola markets), empty or filled glass contour bottles must be lifted from a line and placed into the individual cells of reusable crates, and inspected/de-nested on the inbound side. The bottles are thin-walled, rigid but brittle glass with variable surface condition (scuffing, prior reuse), and a misaligned or over-forced insertion chips the rim or cracks the body. The task sits downstream of filling and upstream of palletizing, embedded in a high-speed line. It is hard for a robot because grip force must be modulated to a fragile object while the bottle is guided into a tight crate cell with near-zero lateral clearance, and glass-to-glass or glass-to-divider contact must be detected before it becomes damage. Note that returnable glass is a minority of KO's overall volume (dominated by PET and cans), so the addressable scope is narrow. We identified this through our own research; we have not confirmed the specifics with the customer directly. This page is our researched read — a starting point for that conversation.
What the task is
RESEARCHED · our reconstructionOn returnable-glass lines (still significant in many international Coca-Cola markets), empty or filled glass contour bottles must be lifted from a line and placed into the individual cells of reusable crates, and inspected/de-nested on the inbound side. The bottles are thin-walled, rigid but brittle glass with variable surface condition (scuffing, prior reuse), and a misaligned or over-forced insertion chips the rim or cracks the body. The task sits downstream of filling and upstream of palletizing, embedded in a high-speed line. It is hard for a robot because grip force must be modulated to a fragile object while the bottle is guided into a tight crate cell with near-zero lateral clearance, and glass-to-glass or glass-to-divider contact must be detected before it becomes damage. Note that returnable glass is a minority of KO's overall volume (dominated by PET and cans), so the addressable scope is narrow.
Is this the actual task and sequence? What are the real tolerances, cycle rate, and reject criteria, and which steps are today's manual bottleneck? Answering these is what turns this from a researched signal into a validated use case.