Avoid these common misunderstandings when using machine vision or barcode scanning

Do's and Don'ts: Unleashing the True Potential of Machine Vision

By Sandia Harrison, Director of Marketing, FPE Automation

In the ever-evolving world of technology, businesses and industries have a real need to consistently seek innovative solutions to enhance efficiency, productivity, and overall performance. Put simply, if they don’t, they won’t remain competitive for long. 

Machine vision and barcode scanning technology help companies do just that. Innovations by companies like Zebra Technologies have emerged as powerful tools for solving a long list of pain points that are commonly associated with old-school manufacturing.

Here are just a few of the many benefits:

• Enhanced quality and process control
• Detection of visual inconsistencies in labels, packages, and item designs on production lines, minimizing defects that could lead to returns, noncompliance penalties, and other financial losses
• Automated inspection
• Streamlining and process improvement
• Real-time visual inspections of items as they move down the line
• Trackability/traceability
• Improved operational visibility
• Compliance with regulations

However, amid the excitement of adopting cutting-edge solutions, many customers often fall prey to certain misconceptions and pitfalls that can hinder the full realization of the technology's potential. 

Not Taking Full Advantage of the Customization Potential

One prevalent misconception among many companies is the assumption that machine vision solutions are one-size-fits-all. FPE Automation has a team of experts that can offer you a higher degree of flexibility, allowing your business to tailor the solutions to your unique environment and application. By understanding your specific needs, our team can work with your engineers to harness the full power of customization and achieve optimal efficiency in your operations.

Not Fully Understanding the Process in Advance

Adopting machine vision technology is a transformative journey. While Zebra's range of mobile computers, barcode scanners, and RFID readers are indeed powerful, successful implementation requires careful planning, integration, and adaptation. The right approach ensures a smoother transition and long-term success. At FPE Automation, it is our role to assemble the right team to do the job. We can involve top industry talent and, if necessary, pull in our own Handshake Solutions team to help you achieve your goals. 

Customer Success Story: Revolutionizing Warehouse Management

One inspiring success story comes from a leading e-commerce giant that was struggling to optimize its warehouse operations. Facing challenges in inventory management, order accuracy, and overall efficiency, the company turned to Zebra's industrial machine vision and fixed scanners.

Upon partnering with Zebra's experts, the e-commerce giant underwent a comprehensive evaluation of their warehouse layout and operational workflows. The Zebra team collaborated closely with the customer to customize a solution that perfectly aligned with their specific needs.

Through the seamless integration of machine vision technology, the organization's upper management witnessed a remarkable transformation. Real-time tracking and accurate data capture minimized errors in order fulfillment, leading to increased customer satisfaction. The ability to tailor the solution to the warehouse environment maximized efficiency and boosted productivity.

Zebra's machine vision technology offers immense potential for businesses across diverse industries. To truly unlock its power, companies must steer clear of common misunderstandings and misconceptions. By embracing customization, managing expectations, and assembling the right team to do the job, businesses can harness the true potential of Zebra's cutting-edge solutions.

We Live in a World Where Manufacturing Excellence and Operational Efficiency Matter More and More

Partnering with FPE Automation for your machine vision and barcode scanning needs is a strategic choice that ensures your company stays ahead of the curve. With a genuine commitment to simplifying complexity, FPE Automation, in collaboration with Zebra, offers an unparalleled solution that transforms fixed scanning and machine vision into streamlined, accessible processes. 

Zebra's groundbreaking hardware and software platform, backed by decades of industrial leadership, empowers you to unlock new levels of productivity and precision. Whether you're a novice or an expert, FPE Automation's expertise ensures a smooth journey, from setup to execution, enabling your company to seize the benefits of Zebra's game-changing innovation. Embrace the future of industrial automation with confidence as the engineers at FPE Automation work with your engineers to pave the way for your success.

Zebra’s Deep-Learning OCR enables fast, accurate reads with no training required.

This New OCR Tool Captures Text Without Training

One of the biggest challenges with setting up optical character recognition (OCR) is having to train your machine vision cameras or fixed scanning devices to get the job done right. Many OCR applications make this harder because they’re not good at capturing hard-to-read or low-contrast characters, especially against confusing backgrounds. Thankfully, there’s a great new OCR tool from Zebra Technologies that automatically extracts text and information from images without font or text training. It provides reliable and accurate reads, even when you’re dealing with extremely difficult characters, low contrast, or tough backgrounds. Zebra Deep-Learning OCR

No Text or Font Training Get reliable and accurate reads without training. OCR for the Toughest Jobs Read low-contrast characters against confusing backgrounds. Amazingly Simple Extract info as easily as drawing a box around an image. Deep-Learning Automation Let the software do the work with drag-and-drop simplicity.

Zebra’s new Deep-Learning OCR is part of Zebra’s Aurora software and its unified hardware platform for machine vision and fixed scanning. This platform and software provide next-generation tools that allow you to quickly and easily set up highly accurate text recognition and character reading in a fraction of the time that’s required with other solutions. In fact, even a novice user can get an OCR job up and running in as little as a few minutes.

View OCR Brochure Zebra’s Aurora software and its revolutionary machine vision and fixed scanning platform are designed from the ground up to be as simple and easy to use as possible while providing powerful tools to automate everything from visual inspections to barcode label checks, routing, sorting and assembly checks. Over the past few months, our team at FPE Automation has been helping many companies implement Zebra’s machine vision and fixed scanning technology, and we’ve seen firsthand what a huge difference Zebra’s tools make.

Zebra’s new Deep-Learning OCR is part of Zebra’s Aurora software and its unified hardware platform for machine vision and fixed scanning. This platform and software provide next-generation tools that allow you to quickly and easily set up highly accurate text recognition and character reading in a fraction of the time that’s required with other solutions. In fact, even a novice user can get an OCR job up and running in as little as a few minutes. To learn more about this faster and simpler way to set up industrial automation, download our Deep-Learning OCR brochure now. Then contact us to schedule a demo and get answers to your questions. Explore Zebra Automation

Zebra Deep-Learning OCR is Available at FPE Automation, Inc. fpeautomation.com fpeinfo@fpeautomation.com 847-364-7455 Content provided by Zebra Technologies, Inc.

2023 brings new regulations for pharmaceutical traceability. Here's what that means

With DSCSA 2023 Requirements Approaching, Now Might Be a Great Time to Take a Look at Zebra Technologies' Fixed Industrial Scanners and Machine Vision

The traceability requirements in effect from 2015 to 2023 required pharmaceutical products to be traceable at the lot level. The second phase of requirements will go into effect on November 27, 2023. 

Here's the new standard, to which all pharmaceutical manufacturers will need to adhere: 

"To allow the interoperable, electronic tracing of products at the package level."

Whether or not you can achieve that with your current technology, it still might pay off to have a conversation about upgrading. There are a lot more benefits that go far beyond simple compliance. 

There may be no better time than now. Reach out to FPE Automation. We have experts in-house who can answer your questions. 

By Sandia Harrison, Director of Marketing, FPE Automation, in cooperation with Zebra Technologies.
Video: Zebra Technologies

"If you need to capture data or images to help automate, streamline, and error-proof any process, we’ll make that happen"

Using DPM to Streamline and Error-Proof Manufacturing Processes

Feature article by: Sandia Harrison, Director of Marketing, FPE Automation, Inc. 

Every manufacturer is under pressure to be as lean as possible and create more efficient and accurate processes. At the end of the day, it’s all about ensuring high-quality and profitable production. But achieving ideal production is the real challenge, and it’s particularly difficult if you’re still relying too much on the human eye or human labor at certain key points in your production processes.

This is why direct part marks, or DPMs, have become commonplace as a way to help automate and streamline manufacturing processes and eliminate human error with machine-driven efficiency and accuracy.

 

DPMs are barcodes or other identifying marks stamped directly onto a component, part, subassembly, or assembly. When they’re used with fixed industrial scanners or machine vision sensors that are placed at strategic points along production lines, DPMs can be scanned and read automatically as they move along, even on high-speed conveyors.

 

This means anything with a DPM can be automatically identified, tracked, traced, and even inspected as it moves through production. It all happens with machine automation that enables efficiency and accuracy that are impossible with the human eye.

 

Fixed scanners or machine vision cameras can scan or read DPMs to do everything from detect the presence of items to count, validate, and inspect them. The results can then be used to trigger automated exception alerts, route and sort parts or products, and conduct DPM-based assembly checks to ensure the correct parts are included in each assembly.

 

Using this approach, you can exponentially speed up, automate, and error-proof processes without relying on visual checks or inspections with the human eye. In fact, using Zebra fixed scanners and machine vision sensors, you can read and decode DPMs as well as 1D and 2D barcodes on high-speed lines, even from long range, from multiple sides, and at difficult angles. Zebra’s devices can capture as many as 16 scans or images, each with different settings—all from a single trigger event.

 

You can also expand further into automation by using Zebra fixed scanners and machine vision sensors to perform a wide range of tasks such as label quality inspection, where you can scan 1D or 2D barcodes to check dates and lot codes, check for label presence/absence, and inspect label content using scans and optical character recognition (OCR).

 

You can also use Zebra’s machine vision sensors to conduct sophisticated image analysis, to detect and recognize defects before they become an issue, to detect foreign material or contamination, and even to inspect packaging.

 

When you rely on workers and the human eye to perform some of these sensitive and difficult tasks, it puts a big burden on workers while opening up many possibilities of error stemming from a momentary lapse of attention, eye strain, fatigue, and other factors. By setting up an automated system to do this, you can create around-the-clock processes that operate more efficiently and eliminate risks of error. Then, you can re-assign workers to more value-added production tasks.

Ultimately, the potential opportunities extend far beyond DPMs and production processes and even into robotics, where machine vision sensors can be used in conjunction with robotic arms to move parts, assemblies, or products from one line to another. Or, scanners and machine vision sensors can be used to automatically detect and route finished goods along the correct conveyors for robotic palletization.

In the end, whether you’re using DPMs or barcodes and Zebra’s industrial automation devices for something fairly simple or extremely sophisticated, it’s relatively quick and easy to get a solution up and running.

At FPE Automation, we have a dedicated facility where we design, test, validate, and build industrial automation solutions for our customers. With Zebra’s remarkably powerful but simple devices and software, we can configure a system that will do whatever you need it to do.

We have an unofficial motto; “What you do is what you do.” If you need to capture data or images to help automate, streamline, and error-proof any process, we’ll make that happen.

We use Zebra’s technology to capture and help automatically analyze and inspect the information you need, and we can send the images, data, and inspection results to any system you need, using a secure, cloud-based approach. It all happens faster and without the eye strain, fatigue, or risk of error that comes with relying on the human eye.

If streamlining and error-proofing more of your production processes would be a boost to your business, connect with our industrial automation experts at FPE Automation to learn more. We’ll show you how DPMs, fixed scanning, and machine vision technologies can work together to increase high-quality production in your manufacturing plant on day one.

To get started, contact us. We’d be glad to help.

Brought to you by FPE Automation, in partnership with Zebra Technologies as part of FPE Automation's Automation Toolbox