Robotech stories: See the future of industry with machine vision
- 18 December 2024 (3 min read)
Robotics and automation possess ever-growing, multi-sector, disruptive potential, and these opportunities are continuously expanding across the full spectrum of design, manufacture, logistics, commerce and beyond. The next exciting development we wish to highlight is quality control and inspection – and how machines can help bring quality and quantity closer together than ever before.
Imagine the journey your favourite bottled drink product takes; all the way from growing and sourcing the raw ingredients, the processing plants and factories in which these are sorted, checked and prepared, the packaging and labelling process, inventory, storage, and the distribution of bottles to retailers – eventually, ending up in your hand. This journey involves a huge and complex series of touchpoints. Traditionally, lots of intensive, hazardous, and time-consuming skilled human intervention and oversight was needed. This could include checking that ingredients or components are of satisfactory quality and that products are being made, packaged, transported and stored correctly. Food and beverage companies represent just one industry of many that require stringent quality assurance, thanks to global safety regulations and requirements, as well as the perishable nature of its goods. How can robotech solutions help?
Advances in both machine learning and machine vision can improve the efficiency and safety of manufacture. Rather than relying on human labour, precise quality inspection can be carried out by sophisticated vision systems, barcode scanners, and artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities. Companies such as the American firm Cognex provide manufacturers with technology to ‘…solve the toughest food and beverage applications, minimizing downtime and delivering consistently safe, high-quality products that are easily traced along the supply chain’.1 As well as improving efficiency, speed, and scale, these solutions reduce the potential for human error at all stages of the quality assurance process, allowing companies to optimise customer satisfaction, reduce wastage and protect their brand. Other companies in this field include Japan-based KEYENCE, who seek to add value to their industrial customers’ manufacturing and research processes.2
Machine vision capabilities are also being developed by US firm Zebra Technologies, along with sensor tags and readers, collectively contributing to the growing digitalisation of factory floors. Its solutions provide manufacturers with advanced quality assurance capabilities, empowering them to improve workflow efficiencies with less downtime and greater precision.3 Similarly its machine vision cameras, such as the durable and high-resolution CV60 series, can also optimise logistics and warehouse operations via AI-enhanced automation. By integrating these digital capabilities throughout the supply chain, companies can again achieve greater speed, tracking, and reduced need for manual operations.4
These companies present just part of the global opportunity available to investors in robotech, and to those seeking to capture a suitably diverse exposure to the long-term growth potential associated with robotics.
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