Automated Optical Inspection for Garment Print Quality Control
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Print providers in the print-on-demand system face challenges with errors such as misprinted designs, faded colors, wrong shirt sizes, and mislocated prints, which lead to reputation damage and wasted shipping costs, including environmental impacts from unnecessary fuel consumption.
Innovation Solution
A method involving a still or video camera to capture images of printed shirts, extract design information, and compare it with order information to determine quality scores, preventing shipment of defective items and storing pass/fail indications on non-transitory storage systems to track quality control.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Manufacturing precision
If automated image capture and analysis systems are implemented for quality control, then manufacturing precision and defect detection improve, but device complexity and initial costs increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces manual visual inspection with an automated optical inspection system that uses image capture devices (cameras) and computer vision algorithms to detect print defects. The system automatically captures images of printed garments, processes them through image analysis software, and generates quality assessments without requiring human inspectors to physically examine each item, thereby substituting mechanical/manual processes with automated optical and computational methods.
Solution Approach 2:
The quality control system performs self-assessment by automatically capturing images, analyzing print quality through image processing algorithms, and generating defect detections without external intervention. The system uses its own integrated resources (cameras, processors, storage) to conduct the entire inspection process autonomously, enabling the production line to self-monitor and self-regulate quality standards.
2Reliability
If comprehensive quality checking is performed on all printed items, then reliability and defect detection improve, but productivity and processing time decrease
Solution Approach 1:
The inspection system operates continuously alongside the production line, capturing images and analyzing quality without interrupting the flow of garments. The automated nature of the system allows it to process multiple items in sequence without stopping production, maintaining continuous useful action for both manufacturing and quality control simultaneously, thus avoiding the downtime that would occur with manual inspection methods.
Solution Approach 2:
The system rapidly captures and processes images at high speed, rushing through the inspection process in a fraction of the time it would take manual inspection. The automated image analysis quickly identifies defects and makes pass/fail determinations without the slow, methodical examination required by human inspectors, thereby maintaining production velocity while ensuring thorough quality checking.
3Loss of time
If automated inspection systems are deployed, then loss of time for manual inspection is reduced, but use of energy and computational resources increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system creates digital copies (images) of the physical printed garments and performs all inspection operations on these copies rather than requiring physical handling and examination. By working with digital representations, the system eliminates the time-consuming aspects of manual inspection while the computational energy required for image processing is significantly less than the cumulative time cost of human inspection across large production volumes.
Data Source
AI summary
Methods and systems for analyzing the quality of a design printed on a substrate, such as a garment for example, are described. Such methods and systems may also be used for analyzing the properties of the garment together with the quality of the printed design. Components of such methods and systems, as well as information used and/or generated by such components, are described.