Quality and time and valuable commodities for all manufacturers. Basic use of statistical process control (SPC) enables you to improve both quality and efficiency. But when you take SPC analysis to the next level, you get even greater benefits.

As manufacturers look ahead to 2021 and beyond, they know that building resilience into operations is critical. They must achieve multiple goals: superior quality, lower costs, improved yields, efficient processes, and minimized waste. The opportunity for meeting all those goals depends on one foundational requirement: enterprise-wide visibility into data.

Inspection reports that take less work can be a great way for an organization to save time and money. Manufacturers have always been interested in being efficient, but during these uncertain times, it makes more sense than ever. 

Those of us on the march towards Quality 4.0 in our manufacturing companies are grappling with the challenge of producing high quality parts with a minimal investment of time and resources into new inspection methodologies. 

In the world of machine vision, as in any tech field, there is a distinct divide between hardware and software. The hardware includes components of machine imaging systems such as the physical camera, lensing, cable interfaces, the PC or processor, etc. and are defined by rigid specifications (i.e. resolution of a camera, processing power, bandwidth of interface). 

More important than the inventor, the first company to market, or even the technology itself, is adoption of the technology. Whether a technology is adopted early or late can make or break not only the technology, inventor, company, or entire industry, but also an entire economy.

Gage management provides manufacturers with data to ascertain the quality of their parts.

In 1969, I had a microphone perched next to the radio, prepared to record each Beatles song played, just to satisfy my obsession at the time. What resulted on my old reel-to-reel player was a series of songs missing the first five seconds of each.

Businesses worldwide are being tested in a crucible of quality. Companies in which quality was already fragile and inefficient have seen their processes go from lacking to completely broken during the COVID-19 crisis.