RUTILEA

CASE STUDY: manufacturer of Non-ferrous metals

Implement die-casting inspection equipment to actual production line

Theme

  • Automating the die casting inspection process, which had to rely on human labor, and improving production efficiency were a management issue to achieve higher profits.

Solution

  • We developed an equipment that used a robot arm to pick die-cast products and automates the inspection process using AI.

Result

  • Our equipment has successfully automated and reduced manpower in the inspection process, and the inspection system has enabled the company to focus on analysis and improvement work. In addition, the digitization of inspection standards by AI has greatly reduced the variation in inspection quality, defective product leakage and over-detection.

All products were visually inspected by inspectors. The severe inspection standards placed a heavy burden on the inspectors.
In addition, the inspectors had to overkill in order to avoid variations and defective product leakage.

Issues associated with the automation of die-cast product inspection

For die-cast products, it is difficult to develop a rule-based inspection algorithm to detect defective products by creating rules for each defect to be detected. Therefore, it was thought to be difficult to automate inspection.
Also, in the past, it was thought that automation of conveyance such as visual inspection and picking would cost tens of millions of yen. In other words, not only the technical aspect but also the return on investment was an issue.

Combine our AI with a robot arm to create a low-cost automated inspection equipment

By utilizing the robot control and open source software provided by our company, we made it possible to automate picking, imaging, and visual inspection from a state of bulk. In addition, we realized automatic picking using commercially available cameras and distance sensors. By combining our self-developed AI software with collaborative robot arms and lighting, we have realized an automatic inspection system at low cost.

Realize automation of inspections and improvement of manufacturing processes

This device realizes automation of inspection and performs big data analysis of defect patterns. The results of this analysis can be fed back to the casting and machining processes to improve the manufacturing process.