Automating Component Inspection within a High-Mix, Short-Cycle Production Environment

The Problem

The existing quality control process, part of a high-volume production environment with cycle times under 20 seconds, required 15 full-time employees (FTEs).

DarwinAI developed and deployed a vision-based AI solution that assists human inspectors by automatically detecting and distinguishing between a range of defects.

The Results

to deploy

3 months

inspection time

2.5 seconds

fewer false positives/scrap

50%

Characteristics of the existing inspection process

• High volume
• Manually intensive
• Short cycle time

Traditional alternatives fall short

The manufacturer recognized that the 20-second cycle time was far too fast for traditional automated vision inspection solutions—and building a proprietary solution in-house was a non-starter because:

• Developing such systems is time consuming and often requires specialized expertise
• Most AI solutions on the market depend upon large volumes of training data to become reliable—often exceeding what is available or economical

DarwinAI offered a compelling alternative: a fast, cost-effective, and—above all—reliable solution that required significantly less training data.

DarwinAI’s Solution

In only three months, DarwinAI developed a purpose-built, AI-driven vision inspection solution that:

• Automated inspection in 2.5 seconds, preserving production volumes
• Reduced false positives by 50% compared to manual inspection
• Enabled reallocation of 60% of FTEs to value-add tasks
• Included built-in governance capabilities for quality control and safety

The flexibility of DarwinAI’s technology ensured straightforward deployment and operation by:

• Integrating with existing systems  including a mounted camera and robotic arm, minimizing CapEx
• Requiring only a few data samples of defects to get started—a fraction of what traditional systems demand
• Leveraging human-in-the-loop operation to quickly achieve production-level performance accuracy

Ultimately, by automating high-volume, high-mix quality control of machined parts, DarwinAI’s vision inspection system delivered a return on investment within one year.