Vision systems for manufacturing and food packing
By Bob Trebilcock, Editor at Large -- Modern Materials Handling, 4/1/2003
On the factory floor
Error proofing is the application most in demand from manufacturers. Rather than perform a final inspection at the end of the line, vision systems are deployed throughout the process to ensure that the right products are being built, and that they’re being built to specification.
“Any time you see a need for quality control, interim inspections, or final inspections, that’s an opportunity for machine vision technology,” says Steve Geraghty, director of ipd, a division of Coreco Imaging (978-670-2000).
Factory automation is another key area for vision technology. “In the factory, a vision system may direct a robotic arm,” says Farnan of Vitronic. “If you’re moving a part from one point to the next, the camera sees the part, identifies the characteristics of the part, and then determines how the robot is going to connect to that part based on its orientation.”
Finally, a vision system can be used for process control in a factory. “In a manufacturing environment, you can run a closed loop operation with a vision system,” says Mario Mancini, president, Applied Machine Vision, Inc. (412-963-7800). “A vision system measures or monitors the quality of products throughout the system, and reports back when the system varies.”
At Fowler Packing, a marking/vision system increases throughput by 50%
By coupling a vision system with an advanced marking system, Fowler Packing Company, a San Joaquin Valley fruit packing organization, has increased the speed of its packaging operations by 50% and significantly boosted product count accuracies in one year.
The vision system (Matthews International Corp., 412-665-2500) is used to count the peaches, nectarines, and plums packed on consignment for fruit growers by Fowler Packing, while the ink-jet marking system creates a bar code with key product identification information used by the packer and its customers.
During the fruit packing season, Fowler receives, packs, and ships on a daily basis to give optimum shelf-life to its product.
Once received, fruit is washed and sized. After stickers are applied, the fruit is packaged in as many as ten different styles of packs, ranging from loose, bulk storage to fancy packaging for high-grade fruit.
The vision system analyzes an image from each box to determine the count. When the boxes emerge from the vision machine they enter a small character marking device section.
The marking system applies a bar code that contains the quantity data from the vision system along with the fruit variety information and grower lot numbers. That number, used for palletizing operations, sorts boxes with identical counts of fruit and assures that all shipments contain the same fruit, fruit variety, and count.
The operation automatically stacks boxes three high, which are bundled in threes prior to manual palletizing.
In all, the system processes 1,800 boxes per hour per machine or 30 boxes per minute.
Overall, the new system is more accurate, faster, permits easier handling at the retailer end, and provides superior handling efficiencies.
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