Portfolio

CHALLENGE

To prevent the injection of counterfeit products into the supply chain, the print shop manufacturer had a client request to serialize all the products that get placed onto consumer shelves, along with inner boxes, master cases, and pallets.

SOLUTION

A custom ASP.Net application was developed to augment the manual process of packing products into inner boxes, master cases, and stacking them on pallets. The system generated barcode labels and printed them to a Zebra printer. These labels would get affixed to the product and boxes. The product was scanned with a Cognex Dataman handheld ID Reader prior to being backed into a box. Once the box was filled, the barcode box was scanned, and all the relational data was stored in a database. Similarly, the filled inner boxes would be added to the master case, scanned, and stored relational data. Master boxes were then added to a pallet, and once the pallet was full, a pallet flag containing all the master cases, along with total product and inner box counts.

TAGS
ID Reading, Barcode Reader, Data Collection

CHALLENGE

A scheduling system dictates the components to be assembled on a diesel engine head.  This information is written to an RFID tag that is attached to a carriage.  The client needed a way to validate the correct engine head was loaded onto the carriage and get its information (production date, parent, and serial number) married to the RFID tag. (7) different head types will need to be handled by this system.

SOLUTION

Multiple Cognex Dataman cameras are oriented in a work cell.  As the carriage enters the work cell and stops, an RFID reader gets the part type and passes that to the HMI software, which triggers 1 or 2 cameras.  The cameras extract the date, parent, and serial number for a 2D matrix dot pin barcode, and the HMI software writes the data to the RFID tag and an edge database.  If the parent number is not valid for the current part type, the error is flagged for an operator to review.  In the event of a poor barcode, the operator can enter the information manually.

TAGS
ID Reading, Automotive, Barcode Reader, Data Collection

CHALLENGE

2D barcode labels are automatically applied to the tub base of a washing machine.  Occasionally the label has poor print quality or is not applied correctly.

SOLUTION

Using Cognex Dataman Barcode reader a custom script was created to handshake between the barcode printing/label applicator.  After the label was applied the Dataman Reader verified that the label was readable and the data matched.

TAGS
ID Reading, Consumer Products, Barcode Reader

CHALLENGE

A labeling system was added to a mixed nut packaging line.  A single line can process 16 different product lines at 120 - 150 jars per minute.  Some products use very similar labels, with differences attributed to what country the product is being shipped to.  Occasionally the wrong labels are loaded into the labeling system.  If this goes unnoticed, a large number of jars need to have their labels removed, and new ones applied.

SOLUTION

Cognex InSight cameras were mounted downstream from the labeler to view the front and backside of the jar.  Multiple pattern matching zones were established to ensure no two different labels would generate a false positive and stored in a lookup table.  Ethernet/IP communications was established between the PLC and the smart camera for effortless product changeovers via a PanelView HMI.

TAGS
Identification, Pattern Matching, Food and Beverage, Barcode Reader, Smart Camera

CHALLENGE

A large national conveyance company installed a conveyor and carton routing system.  The Cognex Datamans (image-based barcode reader) ran well, but once the refrigeration system went online, the label reading on the cartons became unreliable.

SOLUTION

Moisture and the cold environment caused the cartons' labels to wrinkle, and excessive packing tape by newly trained operators created hotspots on labels.  An off-the-shelf cross-polarizing lighting assembly was unavailable at that time, so an existing dual lighting unit was modified with polarizing film and a polarizing filter added to the camera's lens.  

TAGS
Identification, ID Reading, Pharmaceutical, Barcode Reader, Data Collection

CHALLENGE

Product number, manufacturing date, and index are pressed into the surface of the railroad bearing.  Since the characters are on a dial, if an individual character doesn't properly roll to the next character a duplicate serial number can be generated of the character is not fully formed.

SOLUTION

The product was rolled until a laser sensor located the first character.  A Cognex InSight line scan camera imaged the full length of the string and a pattern match was performed on each character. 
Due to the variance in surface finish and impression depth (as the character die wore down), multiple images over the whole production were collected and a composite image for each character was generated.  The composite image of the character was used to generate the pattern classifier. 

TAGS
Identification, ID Reading, OCR, Industrial Products, Barcode Reader, Line Scan, Smart Camera

CHALLENGE

A large print shop was contracted for coupons.  The coupons are serialized and encoded with a 1D barcode to prevent fraud. 

SOLUTION

Cognex Dataman with an HMI was used to ensure readability.  The operator entered the start and end sequence of the serialization.  Dataman would send a reject/stop signal to the PLC if the barcode was not readable or out of sequence.

TAGS
ID Reading, Consumer Products, Barcode Reader

CHALLENGE

RSS stacked codes are printed on the side of a pharmaceutical package.  Readability is a must.

SOLUTION

.Cognex Dataman was used to read the RSS stacked code, and when the quality grade of the printed barcode fell below a threshold grade, an alarm was signaled.

TAGS
ID Reading, Pharmaceutical, Barcode Reader