1. Why choosing the wrong one can make you “lose money silently”

- Long downtime: Poor quality equipment is prone to errors, requiring the production line to be stopped for calibration or replacement of components.

- False Rejections & False Acceptances: Inaccurate systems can mistakenly reject qualified products (waste of materials) or miss defective products (damage to reputation, recall costs).

- Increased maintenance & labor costs: The higher the frequency of manual intervention, cleaning, and calibration, the more time and labor is consumed.

- Difficult to expand, upgrade: Outdated technology, non-industrial protocols → complicated when integrating with MES/ERP or running a variety of products.

“Cheap machines” sometimes mean “cheap investment in smiles, expensive in tears” because hidden costs (downtime, waste, labor) will secretly erode your profits.

2. Factors determining long-term effectiveness

3. AVATECH Strategy: 3 Golden Steps

Step 1: Choose the right hardware

- Industrial camera with suitable resolution and speed

For example: Basler 3-5MP has high speed enough to capture products running at a speed of 6-9 products/s

- Suitable lens

Usually 25-35mm lens to clearly see the inspection area

- Lighting system

Choose area lighting, uniform lighting, ring lighting with brightness covering the date code inspection area

- Data transmission interface

GigE Vision with bandwidth ≥5Gbps ensures no frame loss.

Step 2: Integrate OCR/OCV & AI software

- Specialized aVisPro OCR/OCV software

Ability to recognize blurred, curved characters on complex backgrounds

- AI & Deep Learning with image processing algorithms, OCR reading

Integrated in aVisPro, algorithms find the check text area and then process the image to remove the virtual error area, read OCR accurately at high speed to ensure sending fast and accurate check signals to the reject unit to remove defective products.

Step 3: Build a reporting & warning system

Image storage & retrieval

- Each defective product is saved in a folder by date and named according to the storage time for easy control

Trend analysis report

- SPC Dashboard reports OK/NG/Total quantity and displays as a percentage

Instant warning

- Integrate NG alarm on the machine to give NG error warnings.

aVisOCR5000 - OCR Verification System

4. Sample deployment scenario

1. Requirement analysis

- Line speed (products/minute)

- Surface complexity, date code size

2. POC testing

- Run a real-life demo with multiple lighting and lens configurations

- Measure successful reading rates & false rates

3. Pilot deployment

- Run 1–2 shifts in parallel to fine-tune software parameters

4. Go-live & operation

- Staff training

- Set up dashboard to monitor KPIs

Conclusion

Choosing a “cheap” machine vision system is not as simple as looking at the initial cost. You need to consider the total cost of ownership (TCO): downtime, maintenance costs, scrap, and scalability. With the AVATECH strategy – Advanced Vision + Smart Software + Total Insight, we are committed to helping you:

- Read up to 99% accuracy of date codes on all surfaces

- Operate continuously 24/7, with little intervention

- Collect analytical data, optimize processes

- Get quick return on investment, increase long-term profits

Contact AVATECH now for in-depth advice and demo of the most suitable solution for your high-speed production line!