Over the past several years, there have been some common threads among many of the companies that develop vision sensors and cameras. While vision systems have long had the ability to inspect, identify and guide parts to improve quality and productivity in a wide range of manufacturing processes, now the trend is to develop application-specific solutions. These application-specific solutions or “solution blocks” are not only designed to reduce the overall cost of solutions, but also to make the products and systems easier to use and for end users to implement.
Solutions blocks make the use of vision-based solutions more accessible without having a vision expert on staff at each user plant. Making the products easier to use has been widely successful across the entire industry. With the increased development in the vision sensor segment and easier-to-use software for both smart cameras and PC-based systems, this goal has helped many end users successfully implement vision products for a range of applications. The next logical step is to make systems easier and more cost efficient to implement just like companies have done on the component level.