Redevelopment of the pallet design and image processing to reduce material wastage during crankshaft manufacturing-a case study

As the needs of the industry are changing due to rapid change in technology, management practices, competitive quality & productivity. The demand for cars in the market has increased over the time period and car companies have been thriving in order to produce cars at a faster rate and thus reduce the waiting time after the orders have been placed. The ultimate goal is to speed up the process there by increasing productivity through a proper utilization of man and machine. Similarly, this study has been subjected to an issue in the manufacturing process of crankshafts. Initially, the crankshafts are milled and ground and then the balancing of crankshafts is carried out. Once all the tests in balancing are carried out and corrected, the end product of a crankshaft is obtained and final quality inspection is being carried out. In this case study quality inspection of crankshaft is carried out using image processing to ensure the final product (crankshaft) does not miss out on any drilling or tapping operations. So that the final product can directly be sent to assembly line. In this study, Re-development of the existing pallet design for setting up an inspection system in order to identify the crankshaft flange-hole missing. This inspection system consists of an OR-Based IFM CMOS Vision Sensor which is trained with the images of the flawless part in order to differentiate the flawed ones from it. The indication is carried out near the conveyor with LED bulbs. This research work has been carried out as a case study in an automotive industry with the objective of waste reduction.