Vision systems for quality control are essential for automating production processes and it is unquestionable the fact that, in the medium and long term, they will represent a time-and-money saving investment for companies in many sectors.

Thanks to these systems, waste is reduced, since errors in the production lines are detected in advance, improving the finished product, speeding up the production process, reducing complaints and limiting any returns of defective pieces.

The machine vision systems for quality control can also be used in hostile environments, allowing the inspection of very small and difficult-to-access objects, ensuring greater uniformity of treatment and precision than inspection performed with a human eye. Once the quality standards required by the manufacturer, the customer or regulations have been set, the vision system detects product defects in a precise, reproducible and objective way.

The usefulness of vision systems for quality control in manufacturing industries

These vision systems are used particularly in the manufacturing industry. Within these companies, many machine vision devices are used in quality control; among them we can include: compact sensors, digital cameras, optical image processors, scanners, infra-red cameras, automatic test stations, high-end and pc based systems.

For manufacturing companies, vision systems for quality control represent the ideal technology to simultaneously cope with the numerous requests for compliance and certification and with the need to increase productivity and quality standards, as they allow you to read codes, supervise robotics, measure, identify, check defects and select products.

The main fields of application of vision systems for quality control

Among the main sectors in which vision systems for quality control are applied, we can certainly include the automotive sector, in which any defective parts can not only lead to serious complaints, but also have a strong impact on people's safety.

In the plastic industry sector, components must be frequently checked in order to discover any molding defects, spots on surfaces and other defects. Another key sector for the application of vision systems for quality control is that of electronics, where these represent a valid element for detecting potential defects, such as disconnected cables and faulty welds, since the earliest stages of production processes.

Even within the pharmaceutical and food sectors, it is no longer possible to ignore the use of vision systems for quality control, especially for the traceability of products based on certain factors (expiry date, production lot, correctness of content, positioning of labels, etc.) which cannot be ignored.