VisiConsult X-ray Systems & Solutions GmbH, the leading specialist for industrial X-ray equipment and automation, developed a new and innovative solution for the automatic counting of SMD-components on reels with intelligent type estimation.
Modern manufacturing processes are fully automated these days. Each production stop in the pick and place lines directly reduces the already low margins. One reason for those stops is insufficient components on the feeders. To counter this problem, it is necessary to know the exact amount of components on every reel. The counting of SMD reels is one of the last non-automated steps in the production chain and should be done before or after assembly. Many manufacturers still struggle with the slow and labor-intensive manual or optical approach. By using X-ray technology and advanced image processing this process can be highly accelerated. The counting results are automatically or individually printed on demand.
On request, the result can also be synchronized with a MES or ERP system via an open interface. This leads to the ultimate transparency in material consumption and enables a real-time monitoring of the component stock. Many renowned systems such as Fuji Trax, Cogiscan and many more are already included. The development of the system was carried out in close collaboration with a leading global electronics manufacturer and has proven itself in numerous installations worldwide. The XRHCount is very compact and can be used for almost all SMD components with a reel diameter of up to 400 mm or even the smallest components (01005 or similar). With an external validated accuracy of 99.9% in practice the systems allow our customers to exactly evaluate their stock.
A major innovation is the automated component estimation. The time-costly prior type selection is therefore obsolete. The Artificial Intelligence (AI) allows the system to recognize new types and processes without human input. An absolute innovation is the Counting-Cloud. New component types do not have to be trained locally. Instead, the uncountable reels can be directly submitted to the VisiConsult development team. Regularly every plant will receive an automatic update. The already very extensive database is continuously growing through the input of dozens of systems worldwide. This includes big customers, such as Flextronics, with a reel volume of several thousand reels per day. With a very short return of investment (RoI) the system is the most efficient device on the market to improve your savings and drastically reduce your production costs.