Ensuring the utmost product safety is not only cost-saving, but also good business, as it’s a certain way to ensure a delicate and vital resource: a brand’s reputation.
By Daniel Greb, Head of the Image Processing Division at Gerhard Schubert GmbH
When shortbread is crisp and pralines glisten in their tray, the right quality is there. What delights consumers and manufacturers alike can be traced back to systems that are much less prominent than conveyor belts or robots. And yet, camera-based scanners are capable of great things when it comes to inspection. They continuously check the shape, color, dimensions and height of a wide range of products. The technology has become increasingly sophisticated over the decades, in no small part thanks to the innovation in packaging machines and solutions.
Camera-based scanners are essential to the critical infrastructure of many packaging and picking lines, as they detect everything that takes place on the conveyor belts below them. Failing to do so would be counterproductive. Products that are damaged or incorrectly placed in the packaging inevitably lead to unwanted rejects, machine downtime or even costly recalls – to the detriment of manufacturing companies and consumers. Defective products ultimately pose a safety risk that needs to be avoided at all costs. To this end, scanners play an important role. Different types enable companies in many different industries to carry out quality control in line with their very specific production requirements.
