In a world where the population has access to an essentially limitless number of products, consumers have become very used to the high standards of product quality, with the items people buy usually reliable, functional, and somewhat durable.
In a competitive market, it’s essential for companies to maintain their product’s quality, as slipping behind their opposition in any of these factors will lead to consumers going elsewhere to buy more viable alternatives. As well as this, it’s important for companies to have established protocols in place to deal with customer complaints regarding the quality of products, so that they can be remedied efficiently and fairly.
With technology continuing to improve in an exponential manner, it’s no surprise that the latest tech has an integral role to play in ensuring quality control standards are met. The better the technology involved in the manufacturing and quality control process, the more efficient, thorough, precise, and reliable the process of creating the product in question is, from start to finish.
Read on to find out more about the cutting-edge machinery and processes pushing the horizons in quality control ever forward.
Particle Size Analysis
Particle size analysis is a crucially important part of quality control, serving to provide immensely accurate data in the fields of particle size and particle size distribution. This process is especially important in manufacturing industries involving powders, such as cement in construction, as well as makeup and cosmetics.
For cosmetics manufacturers, the particulate of products is of special importance, as the qualities of particulates dictate many aspects of the final consumer experience, including how the product looks, feels, and interacts with light around it.
Being able to measure particle sizes with particle size analyzers, and implement chosen diameters for the desired makeup qualities, makes for incredible precision and allows cosmetic manufacturers to manipulate the qualities of their products down to the nanometre.
Radar-based Optical Sensors
Precision continues to be a key component in the latest quality control technology, with new designs hoping to tackle common issues found during the manufacturing and quality control process with greater efficiency, accuracy, and effectiveness.
Using optical sensors is a great way for manufacturers to automate some of the quality control processes, as they can provide highly accurate measurements while production is still in progress and don’t have to worry about the intense conditions of heat, smoke, and other factors.
With new, high-tech IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things) enabled, Radar-based optical sensory devices on the market, it’s now possible to not only improve the ability of the sensors to see through heat and smoke but also set up a network of sensory devices to report measurements in live-time, down to the micrometer range.
Deep-Learning AI
In the modern-day, it can seem like AI is a present factor in the improvement of all industries, and that’s because it likely is in some sort of manner. AI is hugely varied in its applications, meaning it can play an effective role in many different ways.
One subset of AI is Deep-Learning or Machine Learning. When conducting visual controls, these machine-learning techniques have the potential to remove human error from the equation, as they can provide highly accurate and reliable results that only improve over time. It’s also a way to ensure that the decades of human knowledge accrued on the matter don’t go to waste.
