Gaining Supply Chain Confidence Using Machine Vision

A product’s development from design, through all the stages of production, packaging, and shipping must ultimately satisfy the customer. Offering quality products and gaining the customer’s trust builds brand loyalty, which is a challenge to overcome when there are many competitors striving to earn market share.

Tracking and tracing the path through the supply chain protects the manufacturer from delivering defective goods, and it can also assure the customer that the product’s origin, like those in organic produce, is verifiable.

Read about developments in product tracking and traceability and see the benefits of machine vision for your operation.

Tracking for Trust

Product traceability documents a product’s path through the supply chain from producer to the customer. In some industries like organic foods, customers want to know that they’re paying for a product that has value and is accurately certified. Building documentation then becomes a touchpoint and is one way to build a relationship between the customer and the brand.

In healthcare, patient health and asset management are key reasons for traceability. A Microscan case study on Visiononline.org states that tracking single instruments helps prevent “cross-contamination between patients through surgical instruments” and meets a need “to manage valuable assets.”

The need for greater flexibility and customization in manufacturing means that accountability becomes more important than ever. A flow of documentation creates a need for greater centralized control to track processes and take corrective action when a flaw is caught.

Tracking to Troubleshoot

A close look at the equipment needed is featured in the article Track-and-Trace Offers Big Opportunities for Machine Vision. Tracking is becoming a regular practice throughout industry as noted in the write-up and a key benefit is that bottlenecks on the road to the buyer are identified.

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Both laser scanners and camera-based image grabbers hold certain advantages. Laser scanners are less expensive, but the longer-term trend is toward image-based systems. Image readers give context for the results, as noted in the article Added Features Give Image-Based Code Readers a Boost Over Laser Scanners. Image-based readers show “what’s happening instead of just seeing the results as you do with a laser…the customer can see why the read failed. Is it a bad printer [or] was the box upside down?”

The direction in automated technology including robotics is easy set up and execution. Machine vision is no different. The DCR200i image-based scanner is a solution from Datalogic of Bloomington, Minnesota and can be connected to a computer in just a few minutes without software to download.

Traceability in life sciences laboratories can collect history of critical data to show that vials have been properly filled and sealed. In an article on robotics.org, Robot-Scientist Collaboration (and Automation) in the Lab, a Keyence machine vision system, the ASEPTiCell, is used “to determine if the stopper is properly positioned and seated on the vial before it’s capped.”

Automated solutions that move products to the customers and help management teams account for assets are like unsung heroes compared to developments in robots and drones. Ensuring that products get to customers on time and according to their specifications is how companies build reputations that last and sustain profitability from one year to the next.

Automation has many important components. Get to know them and appreciate how they can benefit your business. Dig deeper into the topic using resources available on A3.