Automated Inspection Systems vs Human Visual Inspection

Automated optical inspection systems are becoming prevalent in various industries because they allow quick and more reliable inspection of different kinds of products. However, there is still a lot of confusion regarding the benefits of automated vision inspection and why it is better than simple human visual inspection. 

In this post, we are pleased to present to you the difference between an automated inspection system and a human visual inspection so that the benefits of an automated optical inspection system can be fully understood.

The automated optical inspection systems rely on the computer or machine vision to perform their inspection processes. Machine vision means using computer vision in an industrial application to perform a particular function on the basis of image analysis.

Automated optical inspection systems play an important role in different industries and sectors because inspecting the final products and quality assurance are important procedures in most production cycles. It is important to make sure a company is producing the best quality products and prevent defective products from reaching users. 

Quality control has always been an important part of all industries to ensure the products are free of faults, and any issues in their functionalities are fully fixed before reaching the market. With the introduction of modern automated vision inspection systems, the quality assurance processes have become more efficient and reliable. 

Automated optical inspection systems eliminate human errors from the quality control process. Problems like lack of attention or missing out on a defect in the products are greatly minimized because modern 3D AOI solutions are capable of checking each and every part of the products. 

Most of the companies are relying on the combination of automated inspection and human inspection to ensure all available resources are being used in making sure the products reach the highest quality standards. Ultimately, having better quality products enable one to compete with even the most well-established companies and make a mark in the industry.  

By providing better quality products, companies will be able to reach more customers and make more sales. This makes implementing an automated vision inspection system highly useful and cost-effective in the long run. 

Despite great advancements in technology, most of the companies are still using trained and experienced employees to perform a final inspection. However, research shows that human visual inspection is only reliable in 80% of the cases as there is a huge margin of error due to issues like visual fatigue. Moreover, small defects are usually non-detectable by human eyes. 

More organizations and production facilities should implement automated optical inspection systems because such state-of-the-art systems are capable of observing and detecting from images that are simply not possible by a human eye and brain. Moreover, the issue of fatigue is non-existent in computer vision, which gives a major disadvantage over human visual inspection.

Furthermore, modern 3D AOI systems are equipped with many different features like autofocus and zoom making it possible to evaluate the quality of the product from various angles. As a result, such systems are able to catch even the smallest errors and defects in different products. On the other hand, traditional human visual inspection is not able to achieve that.

Following are some of the goals that automated optical inspection systems aim to achieve in the quality assurance process:

• To enhance the quality and reliability of the entire inspection process.
• To verify the products in use and ensure they are defect-free.
• To eliminate or minimize waste and enhance productivity.
• To increase the overall reliability to ensure 100% error detection.
• To make the quality assurance and inspection process much faster than simple human visual inspection.
• To enable real-time checking for engineering processes so that production can be improved

Apart from all the aforementioned benefits, adopting an automated optical inspection system is a quick return on investment because increasing the quality of the products can translate to a rise in sales and revenue, customer confidence, customer trust, repeat purchases and even business reputation.

For more information, feel free to get in touch with our specialists for a full consultation.