How to use traceability 4.0 solutions for
Real-time asset tracking and traceability in warehouses and factories is an important aspect of Industry 4.0 and supply chain management for automotive parts and sub-assemblies, consumer white goods, aerospace, transportation, and electronic system production. Traceability is especially important: It includes location tracking and documenting the history and usage of raw materials, components, subassemblies, and finished goods. In addition to supporting production efficiency and product quality, traceability 4.0 is an essential aspect of product safety, including safeguarding against counterfeit components, supporting accurate recalls, and ensuring regulatory compliance.
Traceability 4.0 solutions rely on marking every individual component, often using 1D or 2D barcodes on labels or directly marked on the items, and actively tracking the movement of items throughout the production process. That can be quite a challenge. For example, a typical automobile has over 20,000 components that must be tracked. Traceability 4.0 implementation can be complex. It's not enough to simply mark every component. Using a single imaging platform for bar code reading and visual inspection of the items is desirable. Additionally, the imagers need to operate in harsh
industrial environments and under variable lighting conditions. To support the traceability needs of Industry 4.0, designers can turn to industrial smart imagers that can read 1D and 2D barcodes for visual inspection and are available with autofocus to improve imaging performance. These smart imagers include advanced decoding algorithms that can read even damaged barcodes. They have double front window construction to minimize issues with condensation, as well as IP65/67 protection to ensure performance in harsh environments.
This article reviews the development of traceability 4.0 and how it supports product safety, product tracking, and regulatory compliance, reviews the basic barcode types and reconstruction software to read damaged barcodes, looks at system integration issues and the tradeoffs between mechanical and liquid lens autofocusing systems and closes by presenting smart industrial imagers from Omron along with a software development tool for setting up barcode reading and machine vision applications.
improved product safety, compliance, and tracking
By Jeff Shepard Contributed By DigiKey's North American Editors
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