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[October 2002]
Innovation Prize for Patented Technologies Awarded to OPTOmachines
CeramicForum (Solignac, France) - specialised in introducing revolutionary equipment applied in other industries into the ceramic industry - has announced that one of its main products, OPTOmachines, has been awarded the innovation prize by the French patent office (INPI) in its category covering Small to Medium Enterprises of all patents registered and approved in the last two years.
Mr Paradis, inventor of the OPTOmachines, confirms that faults and measurements on shaped ceramic products can now be detected and sorted automatically during production. The user can now detect and determine the acceptable or non-acceptable level with the 'Black Box' modules, such as:
• Tableware cracks, black/coloured or white spots, size/shape faults, glaze mistakes etc.
• Cracks in roofing tile cassettes, the roofing tiles themselves or manufacturing faults in other heavy clay and also fine ceramic products.
• Recognition of product 'families' and interchanging information with the production line is also a possibility.CeramicForum says that customers do not only get a payback through labour saving, but the OPTOmachines aid in production line problems as well; it has found that optimisation and regulation of the machinery is carried out much more quickly and efficiently and that the first quality percentage increases tremendously.
Although recognising that similar systems have already been on the market - for example in the tile industry - CeramicForum says that its system differs in that the camera configuration, the special housing, certain other adaptations and the special computer programme all lead to the user being able to recognise very fine detail on complicated shapes.
The information available is said to be flexible to suit each customer's needs, allowing them to analyse their own specific problems, thus enabling optimisation of the production line. The system is used and accepted in various industries, such as the automotive industry for instance, where continuity of production without interruption is of high importance.
ENDS