A 33 person molder checks 200 tiny holes in 3.5 seconds with a robot fed camera

Injection molding of fluoropolymers, PEEK, Torlon and Ultem for medical, energy and aerospace · Inspection · Trade press

The job

Performance Plastics Ltd. in Cincinnati molds a fluoropolymer medical disposable four to a shot, and each part carries an area with 50 holes of 23 mil diameter separated by 12 mil webbing, plus a 15 mil living hinge that has to close with a snap fit. Catching flash and short shots in features that small by eye, at volume, is not a realistic manual job. A robot now demolds every shot and sets it into a fixture where a camera checks each hole from multiple angles and verifies the hinge dimensions, with automated accept and reject.

The shop

33 full time employees plus 10 to 15 temporary workers when needed, reported-by-trade-press. 40,000 square feet holding 22 presses from 33 to 330 tons, 18 of them all electric. Shift pattern: not published.

The equipment

Robot make and model: not published. Camera, lens and lighting make: not published. Part presented in a fixture, with automated accept and reject at the cell. A second automated cell uses two lasers cutting foam strips and disks, two indexing tables of nine stations each, and three vision cameras.

The published numbers

Inspection speed: 2,500 measurements in 3.5 seconds, checking every one of 200 holes across four parts from multiple angles, reported-by-trade-press. Smallest defect detected: flash only 1 mil thick, reported-by-trade-press. Quality outcome: 7 million of these parts shipped a year with no bad parts, reported-by-trade-press as a company statement. Second cell: one part assembled and inspected every 4 seconds, handling 5 million parts a year, reported-by-trade-press. Payback: not published. Cell cost: not published. Inspector headcount displaced: not published. False reject rate: not published. Prior manual escape rate: not published.

Where a source did not publish a figure, this entry says so rather than guessing.

What we would check before believing it applies to you

The number worth studying is 2,500 measurements in 3.5 seconds on 23 mil holes, and it is only achievable because the demolding robot puts the part into a rigid fixture in a repeatable pose; hand presentation would blow the optics budget immediately. On features this small the illumination and lens selection are the entire project and the robot is the easy, cheap part, so price the fixture, lighting and optics as separate line items when you quote something similar. The claim of 7 million parts a year with no bad parts is a company statement made to a reporter, not audited data, and it says nothing about false rejects, which is usually where an aggressive flash threshold quietly costs you good parts. With no robot make, no camera make, no cell cost and no payback published, treat this as proof the physics works rather than as a budget reference. It is also a 2012 plant tour, so the hardware generation is dated even though the underlying pattern, robot presents part to a fixed camera in a fixed fixture, remains correct.

Sources