Market Place

The latest machine vision technology is enabling manufacturers to increase production and offer complete quality control and traceability.

By: R. White

Technological advances

Traditionally, machine vision systems were used in manufacturing to measure, verify, inspect and guide and were often installed at a single point in the production process to conduct one specific task. With increased customer demand for quality control and product traceability and heightened regulations, the range and capability of vision systems and sensors have increased dramatically. They are continuously being upgraded to offer unlimited quality control and traceability options in a variety of formats for maximum flexibility. The systems range from simple one camera installations to advanced multicamera solutions. Common identification tasks for medical devices include reading lot/batch numbers and standard barcodes, and ensuring complete lifelong traceability with datamatrix code. More advanced technology means that machine vision systems are capable of operating in the most challenging of production requirements, including clean room environments and high speed lines.

A modular system

A recent development is a modular system that incorporates code marking, code reading and the complete management of surgical instruments at filter and instrument level, all compliant with the relevant regulations. The system offers full traceability for surgical instruments and implants and the vital vision element accurately reads datamatrix codes measuring 0.8 x 1.6 mm at speeds of 40 readings per second. To achieve this, the camera’s advanced high resolution image capture guarantees reliable code reading, and the powerful integrated processor enables the high read rate. The stainless steel housing allows the vision camera to be used in tough environments: an IP68 (NEMA 6P) rating means safe operation even in the most sterile, hygiene-conscious areas. The system also includes an advanced software tool that is designed to provide time saving solutions to challenging vision tasks such as needle tip inspection and precise height/width angle measurements. The software can be easily integrated into quality management programmes.

Automated inspection

A number of vision systems can be incorporated with robots to offer fully automated solutions. A device manufacturer specialising in the production of small implants combines the two elements to provide a low volume/high variety production solution that has been proven to reduce labour costs and provide a good return on investment. One product line inspected in this way handles small screws required for spinal surgery. Each screw implant is placed in the cell of a blister pack and each batch is identifiable by a code. The products are inspected in their individual nests by being passed through a desktop vision system, which consists of a two-axis desktop robot and a PC-based vision system. The camera is mounted on the desktop robot’s y-axis and the blister packs are moved along under the camera in the x-direction. Several inspections can be conducted for each nest at the same time. An added advantage is that the system ensures compliance with the US Code of Federal Regulations Title 21, Part 11 rule on electronic records and signatures, by tracking the results for each batch and integrating them for future reference. The main benefits of this approach are:

Tap into the rewards

With increasing customer demands and stringent regulations, it is no surprise that machine vision usage within medical device manufacturing continues to spiral upwards. As technology advances, manufacturers are reaping significant rewards from machine vision solutions, which are becoming smaller, faster and more accurate despite complex and challenging production environments.

Information supplied by Leigh Jordan Senior Sales Engineer at Cognex UK Ltd, Sunningdale House, 43 Caldecotte Lake Drive, Caldecotte, Milton Keynes MK7 8LF, UK, tel. +44 1908 206 000, e-mail: leigh.jordan@cognex.com www.cognex.co.uk