Textiles are produced in many forms and for a wide variety of end uses including automotive, aerospace, military, recreation, construction, home decoration, insulation and apparel.
Each end use will have specific criteria and requires functionality, often uniquely satisfied by a combination of textile properties. A full surface area visual check by human eyes is traditionally the main method used to detect functionality and aesthetic appearance.
In most cases manufacture of a textile fabric is part of a multi- stage process to arrive at a final product, of which the textile fabric would account for a small proportion of the total costs, but a high level of aesthetic appeal and performance (e.g. garments, automotive interior, parachutes).
An extreme example is textiles used for automotive interiors where the aesthetic appeal and wear characteristics are a critical part in achieving the overall appeal of a vehicle in a showroom, and so the perceived value of the vehicle.
The consequences of a visible defect being missed during manual fabric inspection and ending up in a vehicle component (seat, headliner etc) are costly.
Manual inspection often takes place at a time lapse after manufacture due to manufacturing process speeds exceeding manual inspection capability, or because access to the production process presents H&S issues. Therefore, repeating defects could continue without detection for some time. The slower manual inspection process requires a disproportionately high number of people.
The solution is an inspection system with 100% attention that can cope with full production speeds and apply consistent and auditable quality standards at the point of manufacture. Such real time quality control can be used to identify and grade defects in real time to prevent them getting through to a customer, to provide information to process improvement engineers to reduce the defect rate and for supplier regulation.
Shelton Vision has applied its expertise from the multi-faceted disciplines of machine vision to overcoming the unique demands of textile inspection and have developed a versatile, multi-application inspection system – Shelton WebSPECTOR.
This system is capable of providing a cost effective solution for all textile inspection demands, as well as similar web type products, from simple plain cloth for basic apparel to critical safety/ performance cloth for parachutes, airbags and automotive end use including car interior and transmission belts.
The application of machine vision to textile and related inspection processes unlocks a wide source of financial benefits, usually concluding in ROI periods of between six and 18 months.
Shelton Vision www.sheltonvision.co.uk T: 0116 279 0920
