Medical Device Manufacturer

A medical device manufacturer needed to improve the quality and consistency of their product. The product is a 4 inch tall, 1.25 inch diameter glass container which needed to be inspected on the side and bottom. Eleven different inspections were required at a rate of 6 containers per second. Defects as small as 0.007 inches had to be detected reliably. Originally, an operator was used for inspection and rejection but was not reliable due to the high speeds and small defects; it was also very monotonous work.

A special conveyor was designed and built to feed the containers at six per second by three cameras and automatically reject defective ones. Three cameras were needed in order to view all of the desired areas. To optimize cycle time, two image splitters were used in order to acquire the images from all three cameras simultaneously. Special high-frequency lighting was used so the cameras could be shuttered to freeze the motion of the containers thus eliminating the need for bothersome strobe lighting.

After installation, the customer found the automated system was far more reliable than an operator and was able to use data generated by the system to improve upstream processes.