Over
and over I’m told that “my” vision systems have to be justified
with labor savings. I’ve always thought that a simplistic approach
because, as we all know, the benefits of using machine vision for
automated inspection are many and varied. But that’s how the money
people view the world where I work, and that’s why I’m always
being told there is no need for my skills in China: it’s cheaper to
pay people to look at things.
According
to “Machine
vision boosts productivity on bottling line,”
published March 6th,
2013 on MachineDesign.com, that’s also the case at beer bottling
plants in China where, “Although manual inspection is labor
intensive and can cause eyestrain and fatigue, most bottling lines
running in Chinese plants operate this way.”
The
article also mentions that, “95% of all beer bottles are returned
for recycling,” in China. Remind me to stick to canned drinks next
time I visit, because I don’t feel comfortable trusting my health
to human inspectors. No matter how vigilant they may be, when the
glass is flying past at 18,000 bottles per hour mistakes are going to
be made.
Fortunately
though, as described in the MachineDesign article, Chinese machine
builder MingJia has developed automated bottle inspection systems.
The article gives details of the system used, (it’s from Dalsa,)
but there are no photos. So I turned to the web and found this page
about the glass
bottle inspector
on the MingJia website.
We’re
still left with the question of how the bottling plants justify this
inspection equipment. I imagine there are two things going on.
First, a system built in China is almost certainly cheaper than one
from the US or Germany. And second, perhaps the more enlightened
beer-bottlers realize that with human inspection the probability of
filling and shipping a contaminated bottle is decidedly non-zero. I
don’t know about consumer protection laws in China, but I’m
pretty sure such a thing would be a big turn-off for customers.
So
to wrap up this rambling post: automating inspection should be about
more than saving labor costs. Protecting the customer, and thus the
manufacturer, should be the priority. Now how about putting a box for
that on my capital appropriation form?
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment