Artificial vision technology and robotics as an articulation for the automation of production processes in the packaging sector

Submitted by Serena Rebollo… on 16 November 2020

  • AIS Vision Systems, E21 Design Technologies, Industrias Plásticas Triana and the Packaging Cluster make up the consortium of the PACKVISION project, which works to incorporate industrial automation systems to improve the efficiency and quality of the final product
  • PACKVISION will offer a solution to reduce factory defects and errors, which can be replicated to other sectors that no longer use this technique.

Currently, there is an industrial fraction of the packaging sector which has to check manually its production with specialized operators in plants that inspect packaging by packaging for printing, layout or configuration errors, among other things. A process that can be altered when variables such as fatigue, distraction or errors imperceptible to the human eye come into play.

The solution proposed by the collaborative PACKVISION project, promoted by the Packaging Cluster, is to introduce artificial vision technology and robotics in direct printing on rigid injected plastic packaging, to increase production efficiency and avoid wasting large quantities of packaging, which is an added benefit for the environment as the waste produced is also reduced.

In this case, a real need has been combined with the technology available from AIS Vision Systems, the adaptation of the robotic systems by E21 Design Technologies and the applicability in an injected plastic plant of Industrias Plásticas Triana, the subsector with the highest representation in Catalan industry, with a total of 314 companies and an aggregate turnover of 4,644 million euros.

The project proposes to carry out a study of the production structure and develop an industry 4.0 artificial vision system to automate, streamline and make the error detection process more efficient, thus allowing production to stop as soon as they are detected, providing an energy improvement and sustainable by not generating unsuitable production, with the support of the human team, which is essential throughout the process.

PACKVISION was one of the three projects approved in the call for grants in support of Innovative Business Groups of this year 2020, together with IntelFoodPack and SmartLabels, as part of the entity's commitment to improve the industrial processes of small and medium-sized companies in the Catalan and national territory.

It is expected that by the second quarter of 2021 the first results of the project will be obtained and this new methodology can be applied in the first manufactures. The objective is to replicate this system to other subsectors that may benefit and thus improve global competitiveness to achieve Industry 4.0.

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