Brief description

Quality control system for medical masks. . The manufacturing of medical equipment and components is subject to extremely high quality requirements. Since most of the products are made from plastic, medical equipment manufacturers face the problem that some products are damaged during production. The defects can be various: from mechanical, occurring during the production process, to poor quality raw material, when foreign bodies can enter the product. Due to high requirements applied for medical equipment, manufacturers try to reduce the entry of defective components into the market. To solve such problems, the most reliable way is to use computer vision systems. They guarantee 99.9% production quality by eliminating defective products.

The problem addressed

The customer faces the following problems in production lines that do not have a medical equipment quality analysis system in place:

• Work in shifts (24/7) results in a poorer quality control of production during night shift;
• Human errors, when inferior quality products are missed due to a decrease in concentration during monotonous work (part of the defects may not be noticed during the inspection);
• This task requires additional workforce;
• Defect traceability is complicated;
• Imprecise and impossible in real time quality accounting.

Solution to the problem

A solution has been developed based upon optical product analysis, that ensures the quality of medical masks production. This solution consists of hardware and software. A complex system working along with a robotic production line carries out the sorting of products according to the defined quality parameters. The medical equipment quality analysis system has helped not only solve the problems that the customer encountered, but also brought additional benefits:

• Analysis of every medical mask;
• Statistical data and review of the photos of mask defects;
• Automated report generation;
• Review of the results in real time;
• Correction of qualitative parameters;
• Automated sorting of qualitative and defective masks with a help of robot (following customer’s needs);
• Defect traceability based on stored data that is available to employees responsible for production quality.

Technology:

Video cameras: High-definition or line scanning video cameras are used.

Light sources: Specialized lighting and lasers are used.

Defect identification: Specialized software is developed using computer vision and artificial intelligence techniques (specialised solutions following customer’s needs).

Parameters of quality analysis system for furniture analysis system:

System performance: in a given case, the product (medical anesthesia mask) is scanned from 18 different positions and a general decision is made. The system can work in parallel, thus increasing the overall inspection performance.

The solutions’ applicability in the market

This solution can be applied in every medical equipment manufacturing enterprise. The system is modular, so it is possible to apply a partial modification according to the needs of each customer. The company works intensively on improving the analysis of plastic production output. Analyzer of the size of fertilizer granules.