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The new MP3 players from global electronics manufacturers like Sony are marketed to the demanding consumer market, so performance cannot be compromised in any way. Sony Malaysia was looking for a code reading and quality tracking solution for these MP3 player PCBs. Such product tracking is critical, enabling Sony to avoid costly product recalls and mix-ups, and to implement “breakdown control” in the event of a problem. In the past, poor code reading performance and consequent product rejections cost companies significant amounts of money for product rework and rejected components. The company’s aging code reading system proved unable to meet the challenge. Sony Malaysia uses the In-Sight® 5110 for barcode reading on a PCB for a new MP3 player.
Need to achieve 100 percent reliable code read rates and faster time to market
Each PCB travels on a conveyor belt on nine assembly lines and is marked with a 10-character Datamatrix code measuring just 1mm x 1mm containing product information. The daily output of the factory is up to 40,000 components, so the code reading solution deployed should guarantee a 100 percent read rate, allowing the assembly line to work without interruption and eliminating downtime. The company’s current code reading solution was clearly unable to meet this challenge, as the average weekly reject rate was 10,000 components, costing the company money and delaying time-to-market for important products.
In-Sight ID readers that meet the challenge
The serial number identified on each PCB on which the product is assembled must be confirmed and tracked. If the reader cannot be adjusted with product changes on the assembly line, the serial number may not be read, resulting in data loss. No two read points are the same. Lighting, environment, and placement of components can vary widely, requiring powerful and flexible code reading devices that operate stably in changing environments.
Sony experimented with different barcode readers on the market. The only barcode reader that finally met Sony’s requirements was Cognex’s In-Sight 5110 ID reader. The 5110 outperforms the competition in the following ways:
? High-speed decoding speed, sturdy and durable
? The 5110 offers new support for viewing angle distortion, ensuring reliable code reading even at an oblique angle to the PCB.
? The way the barcode reader works can be tried several times with different exposure values - it adjusts itself to the surface of the PCB, increasing the chances of a successful barcode reading.
? Product replacement without reader retraining
? Flexible multiple communication channels
? Diverse data collection—critical for plant databases
? Unlike similar products, In-Sight 5110 ensures reliable OCR (Original Character Recognition)
100 percent reliable code reading rate has helped Sony save $5,000 a week
The In-Sight 5110 ID readers are currently installed on nine assembly lines, replacing existing readers. The reading time is 2 seconds each time, compared to more than 10 seconds for similar competing products. Code reading success rate increased from 95% to 100%. Thanks to a 100% successful code reading rate, the pipeline no longer stops due to poor code reading performance. No need to stop the pipeline for product repositioning or focus adjustment. These factors have helped Sony save $5,000 a week (calculated based on a cost of RM1.5 per component and a 5% failure rate of 200,000 components per week). The company expects a return on investment within 10 months.
TK Tan, an engineer at Sony Malaysia in Penang, said, “Thanks to our improved code reading time and increased reading success rate to 100%, this not only saves valuable time but also increases productivity – we hope that in other OCR applications environment to implement this vision solution.”
About Cognex
Cognex Corporation specializes in the design, development, manufacture and sale of machine vision and industrial systems or visual equipment. Cognex vision and ID systems are used around the world for a variety of inspection, identification and guidance applications throughout the manufacturing and distribution process. Cognex is a global leader in the machine vision and industrial ID industries, with more than 800,000 systems installed around the world and more than $3 billion in cumulative revenue since its founding in 1981. Cognex is headquartered in Natick County, Massachusetts, with regional offices and distributors in North America, Europe, Asia, Japan and Latin America. For more information, please visit Cognex online at http://www.cognex.cn.
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