Imagine an industrial facility with dozens of video cameras that continually record and store video of plant operations … for weeks, if not months. If the cameras are strategically placed, they will capture a visual record of nearly everything that…
A New World of High Resolution Cameras We see footage from convenience store security cameras … usually in a police report or plea for citizen help … and the videos are colorless, grainy and lack detail to see the action…
Typical manufacturing and business operations involve a huge range of independent activities. One of the key differences between the various activities is the way in which they unfold over time … their speed and timing. Sad to say, our traditional…
In previous blog articles, I advocated using video monitoring technology in standard production operations. In writing these notes, I often wondered why this hasn’t happened already? The opportunity and benefits seem obvious and the costs are reasonable. I never found…
Factories need time machines! It would be really cool if a quality manager could go back in time and watch how (ultimately) defective units were made … their actual journey through production. It might help the maintenance engineer to watch a (later…
As previous posts have argued, I believe that manufacturing and logistics operations are grossly under-utilizing video technology in their operations. I believe there are many easy wins if you apply standard video surveillance technology to manufacturing and logistics processes. However,…
For 20+ years I have heard objections to the use of video surveillance technology to routinely view and record factory (and warehouse) operations. Setting aside the fact that every facility routinely records security video, it is common to hear that…
A new concept in manufacturing is the prospect of “Industry 4.0”. It’s a factory where the new technologies (automation, digital communication, Internet of Things, cloud, etc) are integrated into a complete production system. The following YouTube video from Siemens makes…
Several other posts have focused on the performance of human operators in a production environment. However video can also be used to better understand how machines operate. The following video clip shows how dough is extruded and then cut off…
At the end of the Hartybake production process there is an automatic bagger. Waffles are placed on a conveyor with small moving pegs to control spacing. Workers transfer the waffles that exit from the oven and insert them in the conveyor. The naturally…
