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In The Winery

ies depending on the inspection technology. While human inspectors, then systems such as ours will
some systems, namely the fill level and closure allow them to meet that need.”
inspection systems, can almost reflect a set and
forget mentality, others require specific levels of Reardon told The Grapevine Magazine that a com-
training. mon request he hears from wineries is to have the
ability to identify minuscule pieces of glass inside a
“Covid has illuminated the need and challenge of bottle after filling, seeming to suggest that this type
consistently receiving and delivering quality sup- of inspection requirement hasn’t been adequately
port while using different yet still successful ways accomplished or addressed. On the flip side, winer-
that are still efficient,” said Reardon. “FT System ies are just not aware of the many needs they could
maintains a dedicated U.S. field service team locat- easily meet by using automated inspection systems
ed across the country so that in the event on-site and the data they produce.
training or service is needed, we have a team based
in the United States to manage that, meaning our “We are seeing a trend in how the resulting
customers will never have to rely on and wait for inspection data is handled and managed, and it has
international travel restrictions to ease or open up. proven to be critical and extremely valuable infor-
Additionally, all FT System inspection units can be mation. FT System is releasing a system that tracks
accessed remotely for real-time diagnostics and the supplier quality data as part of the overall quali-
remote support, which is a huge benefit. We have ty management system versus having and consider-
also had a few inquiries from wineries that are ing glass inspection as a stand-alone component or
considering reducing the number of line workers to a single quality control point. Then the data results
meet their needs or successfully increase social dis- can be fed back to the glass supplier for support in
tancing between line staff. If a winery is still using their own production process. A future release will

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