Where manual inspection wears down
A good inspector finds most of what is wrong with a part. The trouble is the hundredth part of the day. Eyes tire, light changes, and a shallow nick under a shop lamp looks different at two in the afternoon than at seven in the morning. Nobody is careless. People are just not built for hours of the same look.
High-mix work makes it harder. When the part changes every few days, there is no time to build a perfect gauge or a long checklist for each one. The inspector keeps the standard in their head. That works until they are out sick or the shop adds a second shift.
What the station does at the bench
You place the part in an enclosed lighting box. The camera takes a photo under the same light every time. VZSOR compares that photo to what good parts of that number look like and returns PASS or FAIL. On a FAIL it draws a heatmap over the photo so the inspector can see where to look.
The inspector decides. If the station flags a part and the inspector sees nothing wrong, they can override it, but they have to write a reason. The original verdict stays in the record. If the station passes a part the inspector does not like, the inspector still rejects it. VZSOR assists the person. It is not the last word.
Setup uses photos of good parts only. A setup wizard walks you through about 60 photos from your own line, and you do not need to collect or stage defective parts first. That keeps setup short enough to repeat when a new part number comes to the bench.
Records that build as you work
Each inspection stores the photo, the heatmap, the result, the part number, the lot and serial, the operator, and the time. You can export the log to a CSV file. Nobody has to fill in a second form, and nothing depends on someone remembering to write it down.
This helps when a customer calls about a lot shipped months ago. You can pull up what the station saw and who was on the bench. It will not settle every dispute, but it gives you something better than a memory.
What has been tested, and what has not
VZSOR is pre-pilot. It has been validated on one part: a 2 inch by 2 inch aluminum L-bracket with a mill finish. It was trained to catch dents, scratches and nicks on the visible faces. That is the full extent of what we have shown.
We have not validated anodized parts, parts with heavy tool marks, dark refractory metals, or other part shapes. Tool marks in particular can look like scratches to a camera. That is why the pilot exists: it measures the station on your parts before you spend anything more.
Good fit, poor fit
Good fit
- Small and mid-size machined parts that fit under the camera in one view
- Plain metal finishes with visible faces that matter to the customer
- Parts a person now inspects one at a time, with a lot or serial number
- Shops where one part number runs often enough to justify a pilot
Poor fit
- Parts much larger than the camera's field of view
- Checking dimensions or tolerances, which VZSOR does not do
- Long continuous runs on a high-speed line
- Surfaces with heavy, varied tool marks that look like defects
Limits, stated plainly
- Validated on one part only: a 2 inch by 2 inch mill-finish aluminum L-bracket.
- Anodized parts and parts with tool marks are not yet validated.
- It checks the look of visible faces. It does not measure dimensions.
- It flags suspect parts for a person. It is not final quality sign-off.
- Field of view is about 100 to 120 mm, so large parts need another approach.