Large Automotive Manufacturer Integrates eFlex Vision with Cognex Cameras to Optimize Vision Inspection System, Improve Part Quality and Reduce Warranty Costs

• Analytics & Modeling - Real Time Analytics
• Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Exchange & Integration
• Sensors - Camera / Video Systems

• Automotive

• Discrete Manufacturing
• Quality Assurance

• Machine Condition Monitoring
• Predictive Maintenance
• Visual Quality Detection

• Software Design & Engineering Services
• System Integration

The customer, a global automobile manufacturer, was facing challenges with their existing transmission manufacturing process. The detailed nature of automotive transmission manufacturing and the high cost of errors made it crucial to ensure high levels of quality and minimize warranty costs. Prior to implementing a vision inspection system, the transmission line and all previous assembly lines were managed in a manner that was inefficient and costly. Images were stored on 50 PCs scattered throughout the plant, requiring engineers to visit each storage area to retrieve images associated to a particular serial number. This incurred excessive PC life-cycle cost and labor due to the initial investment, and ongoing OS patches, virus updates and hardware failures. The PCs failed to integrate and store images reliably, resulting in lost images. The system also lacked diagnostic capabilities, such as alerts when quality was degrading, as well as data and reporting capabilities.

The customer is a global automobile manufacturer with a 2 million sq. ft. transmission manufacturing plant and 2,000 employees. The company invested $323 million into its new 6-speed, front-wheel drive transmission assembly line. Automotive transmissions are very complex assemblies that can be rendered defective by a single faulty component or incorrect assembly operation. The cost of repairing and replacing a defective transmission can easily run to hundreds of times the cost of the component that caused the problem. This explains why transmission plants have traditionally deployed hundreds of inspectors who were assigned to manually view each of the many parts and assembly operations involved in building the final product.

To address the challenges, improve quality and reduce warranty costs, the transmission plant incorporated eFlex Vision to create an integrated environment for managing and retrieving process images. This transmission assembly line now has over 300 Cognex cameras and uses eFlex Vision to process and store approximately 200,000 images per day (with associated data for each part in every stage of the assembly process) at roughly 200 images per minute, into a central system that includes numerous search capabilities. There is a tool inside the application to facilitate an automated standardized file naming convention for every camera. The naming convention facilitates the user to easily sort and search through millions of images to find any part number from any station within seconds. The solution by eFlex Systems included a Dell EqualLogic storage server with 12 network interface cards and 48 2 Terabyte hard disk drives providing 71 Terabytes net storage space. The plant floor cameras were all modified within two days to FTP files to the eFlex Vision server.

• The manufacturer continues to improve quality by identifying problems as soon as they occur, and prevent defective parts from reaching the customer.
• The diagnostics provided on camera operation reduces the number of false rejects by alerting engineers of problems with camera or vision system integrity, programming and setup.
• Engineers are empowered to quickly search, view and export images from any operation in the plant from a single web interface.

• The system processes and stores approximately 200,000 images per day at roughly 200 images per minute.
• The solution currently has the capability of storing 1,500 images per minute.