Manufacturing and Image Processing

An editorial in today's Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun states, "Customer complaints and defective products have increased at one factory.

Frankly, I feel that one factor contributing to this is the "widespread use of imaging inspections.

As you are aware, the current level of image processing inspection is inferior to that of humans in terms of "judgment. Most of the inspection devices make a judgment of "good" or "bad" by extracting a small amount of information (dimensions and area) from the image and judging only on that basis.
In many cases, the results of the inspection equipment are trusted and the product is shipped without visual inspection.
It may be as if they close their eyes and only measure a small portion of the dimensions with calipers before shipping the product.
It may be no wonder that products made from such a collection of parts are defective.

The major difference between visual inspection and image processing inspection is that in the former, "individual judgment" of dimensions, etc. is made after a comprehensive judgment of "whether there is anything wrong overall. In the latter, however, it is rare to be able to judge "whether there is anything wrong overall," and only "individual judgment" is made.

SO WHAT SHOULD WE DO ABOUT IMAGE PROCESSING INSPECTIONS? I THINK THE ANSWER IS ONLY "COMPARATIVE INSPECTION, WHICH INSPECTS WHETHER THE PRODUCT IS THE SAME AS A GOOD PRODUCT OR NOT. IF IT IS THE SAME AS A GOOD PRODUCT, IT IS OK; IF IT IS DIFFERENT, IT IS NOT. THEN, IF PRODUCTS ARE ASSEMBLED USING ONLY PARTS THAT ARE THE SAME AS THE GOOD PRODUCTS, THE VARIATION IN THE FINISHED PRODUCTS WILL BE SMALLER, AND THE NUMBER OF DEFECTIVE PRODUCTS WILL ALSO DECREASE.

I myself was made aware of this fact while developing & marketing FlexInspector. I believe that the current way of doing image processing inspections is dangerous, and it is my job to tell people that.