A study by McKinsey & Company found that AI-driven quality testing can increase productivity by up to 50% and defect detection rates by up to 90% compared to human inspection. Though machines with automated optical inspection (AOI), powered by machine vision, have replaced most of the manual processes in the modern assembly line, quality control still remains a huge and costly challenge. The European Commission claims that in some industries 50% of production can be abandoned due to defects, and the defect rate can reach up to 90% in complex production environments.
The critical limitation with machine learning AOI systems is in disclosing surface defects where even a slight variant (often invisible to the human eye) can hamper the entire production run and render hundreds to thousands of products useless before the defect is discovered. The economic impact can be devastating.