Technology Advances Machine Vision Systems!

At our facility we were able to use a vision system from Symetix (a Key technology company). It has enabled us to replace our inspection process (human powered) to a fully automated system. We can process 80,000 to 900,000 soft gels capsules an hour. Much faster and more reliably that a crew of 11 people X three shifts, so 33 people. I am not a fan of replacing humans at all. but we have discovered that 1 person is 90% accurate, 2 people are about 75% accurate. and the more people you add the less accurate, but volume is increased. I think with the advancement of lensing and lighting plus the camera target catching speed and calculation speed have increased it makes vision a more useful tool in quality checks and over all monitoring a production line. Merging vision and intelegent machines make production and automation much easier to place in factories where it would not seem possible before.

All well and good, but it's what the 'machine' does with/about whatever it sees that really matters. Without the other end of the system in place, eagle-eyed machine vision is a parlor trick looking for a parlor. I believe that is the true topic for discussion - the usability, not the vision itself.

I was amazed to see the vision system used by potato chip manufacturers in action during a plant tour with my high school. As chips exit the fryer, they are scanned and a computer algorithm picks out the locations on the conveyor of any overcooked chips. Then, somehow, the system directs a pulse of compressed air at the bad chips to blow them off the line into the trash. That was 10 years ago.