Enhanced product quality and production efficiency through application of real-time automated inspection

Polycon是一家位于安大略圭尔夫的大型汽车制造厂。该工厂是麦格纳公司（Magna Inc.）工厂和专业生产聚合物为基础的身体部件，如筋膜，并有大约1400名员工。质量的一个关键衡量标准是所有装运的零件必须没有缺陷。缺陷有各种形式和特征，但通常可分为三类：物理缺陷、外观缺陷和颜色匹配缺陷。外观缺陷是影响成品整体外观的缺陷，例如橙子皮（零件表面看起来像橙子皮）。物理缺陷包括对零件表面的任何物理损坏，包括油漆应用缺陷，如边缘滴落和油漆流，零件上的污垢或纤维，处理缺陷，如碰撞，刻痕，划痕，凿痕，以及最终的模塑缺陷。颜色匹配缺陷是指零件的颜色测量不符合客户规格的缺陷。 2013年9月，申请人获得了NSERC Engage赠款，用于研究Polycon自动检测系统的设计。在研究了各种缺陷类型及其特征之后，申请人及其团队能够开发、实施并成功测试一种能够检测最常见物理缺陷的算法。该小组还设计和测试了颜色检查系统的初步原型。由于这些令人鼓舞的初步结果，2014年7月开始了后续的Engage plus赠款，以继续进行这项调查。 该提案的目标是开发一个实时自动化检测系统，用于对Polycon部件生产进行全面检测。原型将首先在圭尔夫大学进行测试。随后将在Polycon进行全系统在线测试。该系统将使Polycon能够实现显著的质量改进沿着，同时降低劳动力成本和零件浪费。

Polycon is a major automotive plant located in Guelph, Ontario. The plant is one of Magna Inc. plants and specializes in manufacturing polymer based body parts like fascia and has around 1400 employees. A critical measurement of quality is that all shipped parts must be free from defects. Defects come in various forms and characteristics but can generally be categorized in three categories: physical, appearance, and colour matching defects. Appearance defects are defects that impact the overall look of a finished product such as orange peel (the surface of the part looks like the skin of an orange). Physical defects include any physical damage to the part surface including paint application defects such as edge drips and paint runs, dirt or fiber on the part, handling defects like bumps, nicks, scratches, gouges, and finally moulding defects. Colour matching defects are defects where the part's colour measurement doesn't meet the customer specification. In September 2013, the applicant was awarded an NSERC Engage grant to investigate the design of an automated inspection system at Polycon. After studying various defect types and their characteristics the applicant and his team were able to develop, implement, and test successfully an algorithm that was able to detect the most common physical defects. The team also designed and tested a preliminary prototype of a colour inspection system. Due to these encouraging preliminary results, a follow up Engage plus grant was started in July 2014 to continue this investigation. The objective of this proposal is to develop a real-time automated inspection system for full inspection of Polycon parts production. A prototype will first be tested at the University of Guelph. This will be followed by full system testing on-line at Polycon. This system will enable Polycon to realize significant quality improvement along with reduction of labour cost and wasted parts.