If your ecommerce or logistics department could save five seconds on every item it picked for your customers, imagine what that could do for your business. That’s what happened to one company recently when it upgraded its barcode readers from traditional laser scanners to an ‘image-based’ optical system. Most of us have experienced the big..
HotSpot is a fully integrated, 100% automated, non-contact quality control system, designed to check the integrity of hotmelt glue used in packaging. As consumers are driving the movement away from the use of plastics in packaging, cardboard is becoming a popular and sustainable alternative. Previous solutions of plastic overwrap are being replaced with both traditional..
Today, we’re taking a peek into the journey of a can of ‘generic product’. A major production facility in the UK briefed our engineers to implement an MES (manufacturing execution system, for those who don’t like acronyms) and generally increase efficiency and productivity. The factory prepares, packages and ships cans of product to retailers all..
The IP code is an internationally recognised classification system. It’s a standard way of describin Short for Ingress Protection Rating (or sometimes International Protection Rating), it classifies and rates the degree of protection provided against the intrusion of solid objects from hands to water droplets. It’s particularly useful in engineering and manufacturing, because it gives..
Engineering has been stuck in a rut for a good few years now. Its image is a little dusty, and it st You may have seen a new engineering prize in the news this week. The Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering is a new global prize to recognise and celebrate outstanding advances in engineering. Advances that..
Very small things can cause very big problems (just consider the manflu virus). It’s not all about the large, easily visible features – as you’ll see. We recently undertook a trial to inspect metal laminates for a company that makes engine parts (mostly bearings). The components we looked at were copper/steel bimetallic strips. The metal..
New technology is emerging all the time. Today, we’re looking at some technology that won’t just ena Vision systems have been in the news over the past few days – with advances in imaging technology that may have far-reaching consequences the vision industry. The science behind it is complicated but fascinating, with the full scientific paper..
This is the first in a series of articles looking at illumination in a little more depth. Lighting i This type of specialist illumination is very sophisticated, requiring the application of science to understand why and how different lighting options are suited to different uses. Begin at the beginning with illumination Before you even start..
In days of yore, someone would take a couple of items per hour off a production line and measure the An increasing focus on quality means that more and more products need to be tested – and a dozen people all measuring a variety of stuff manually is not the way to go about it…
People still look on machines with suspicion. But is it justified? We don’t think so! Not so long ago, people were deeply suspicious of mass production. How could an automated process possibly be as good as a human at creating things? Although this perception in factory production has been squashed, some aspects of this suspicion..