The Swiss company, Leuthold Mechanik AG (HLM) makes machines for manufacturing aluminium containers which, among other things, are used for packaging pet food and foodstuffs. A core element of quality assurance is machine vision by STEMMER IMAGING. Unremittingly, 120 times a minute over three shifts the ram on the press in the HLM Competence Centre rises and falls and after every stroke spits out four finished pet food containers. A machine like this thus produces 480 high quality aluminium containers per minute, which will later be filled with pet food.
There are several reasons for using aluminium as the material for such containers: For one, this material is gas-tight, which means that the contents can be stored for much longer. Furthermore, aluminium can be recycled and consequently is more sustainable than plastic, which is not gas-tight and also cannot be classed as harmless from a health point of view, due to the addition of plasticisers. The aluminium cans are also coated, so that the foodstuffs do not have any direct contact with the aluminium.
