Our state-of-the-art machines are the cornerstone of traceability, marking unique identifiers on each component for unparalleled quality control and operational excellence.

Embrace the power of meticulous root cause analysis, streamline product recall processes, and enhance customer satisfaction.

Safeguard your brand against counterfeits and ensure every part’s journey is tracked with flawless accuracy.

Contact our sales team to learn more about our laser marking machines at sales@tracesol.co.za

Part 2 – Preventable Recalls in South Africa

Over the next series of blog posts, we’ll be delving into how our vision and inspection solutions can help prevent some of the Automotive Industry recalls that were experienced last year, equipping you with solutions to prevent recalls in the future.Airbags, our crucial guardians in a crash, shouldn’t become the source of our worries. Yet, recalls on defective airbag systems continue to plague the automotive industry, costing lives and eroding consumer trust. But what if we could catch these issues before they reach the road? Enter safety system final assembly verification with advanced vision systems – a game-changer in preventing airbag recalls.

The Alarming Reality:

• Global Impact: In 2023 alone, millions of vehicles were recalled due to airbag issues, raising serious safety concerns.
• Costly Consequences: These recalls cost manufacturers billions, impacting their bottom line and brand reputation.
• Hidden Dangers: Defective airbag systems can malfunction, deploy unexpectedly, or fail to deploy altogether, putting lives at risk.

Where Final Assembly Verification Steps In:

Final assembly verification with advanced vision systems acts as a final safety net, ensuring airbag systems are flawless before vehicles roll off the line. Here’s how:

• Precision Inspection: Our high-resolution cameras and AI-powered algorithms meticulously examine every aspect of the airbag system, from deployment modules and inflators to wiring harnesses and sensors.
• Defect Detection: Even the slightest imperfections, misalignments, or missing components are identified, preventing defective units from reaching the final product.
• Data-Driven Insights:  Manufacturers gain valuable insights into potential production bottlenecks and recurring issues by analysing inspection data, enabling proactive corrective actions.

Examples of Preventable Airbag Recalls:

• Airbag Recall: Defective airbags caused safety concerns in certain South African car models last year. Our automated visual inspection systems can ensure these critical components meet strict quality standards before assembly.
• Airbag Debacle:  With millions of vehicles recalled globally, this saga could have been mitigated with robust final assembly verification systems catching manufacturing defects early on.
• Faulty Sensor Issues: Faulty sensors can prevent airbag deployment. Our vision systems can ensure proper sensor calibration and functionality, eliminating this potential hazard.
• Incorrect Gas Mixture: Improper gas mixtures can lead to erratic inflation or even ruptures. Our systems can verify the correct gas composition, ensuring optimal airbag performance.

Safety System Vision Inspection Solutions available from Traceability Solutions:

Airbag Canister Inspection: Inflating airbags requires gas generators, which are essential to the operation of car safety systems. All parts must be present and in the right positions for the gas generator to operate properly. The lack of positional accuracy provided by human inspection makes it challenging to achieve strict specification standards. Manufacturers of assemblies and parts that arecritical to safety can check for the presence of parts and automatically confirm their location with our vision systems. In order to determine a pass-or-fail result based on standard standards, vision tools locate the position of the airbag canister in the field of view and adjust to changes in lighting produced by the parts’ curved reflective surface.Airbag Fabric Inspection: Strict quality requirements are applied to airbags in order to guarantee passenger safety. All safety-critical parts must be checked twice and three times by automakers in order to assure quality, lower warranty costs, and lower recall liability. This is particularly crucial for airbags, which need to be checked for defects in the seams and stitching, as well as holes, rips, and tears that could lead to airbag failure. In manual inspection, these kinds of quality problems are frequently overlooked or difficult to find.The intricate textile surface of an airbag makes them challenging to program into a conventional machine vision system. Because of the fabric’s stretchability, yarn thickness, and innumerable tiny acceptable changes, the pattern of the fabric can be extremely intricate, and the way airbags look varies greatly.Airbag Component Inspection: Strict quality requirements are applied to airbags in order to guarantee passenger safety. Quality control is crucial for airbags because even a small production flaw can affect how well the cushion performs, particularly when it comes to the textiles and seams. The final product is influenced by the fabric and seams, so it’s important to check them for flaws like uneven or long stitches and other structural problems. In manual inspection, these kinds of quality problems are frequently overlooked or difficult to find. From the yarns used in weaving until the final sewing operation, meticulous testing and quality control are required. With the help of our vision systems, manufacturers may achieve higher accuracy than with manual inspection by automating the airbag stitching inspection process. Through precise stitch length measurement and other methods, the vision system confirms that airbags adhere to standards.

The Road to Safer Cars:

By integrating final assembly verification with advanced vision systems, manufacturers can achieve:

• Significantly reduce airbag recalls, saving lives and protecting their brand reputation.
• Enhance overall vehicle quality and safety, leading to customer satisfaction and trust.
• Optimize production efficiency by identifying and addressing issues early, minimizing waste and downtime.

Investing in the Future:

The automotive industry is rapidly transforming, and embracing advanced vision systems is no longer optional. The South African automotive industry is poised for growth, but quality control remains crucial. By embracing advanced vision and inspection systems, South African OEMs can:

• Prevent costly recalls and protect their brand reputation.
• Ensure vehicle safety and comply with regulations.
• Boost production efficiency and competitiveness.

Investing in smarter vision systems today is an investment in the future of the automotive industry, one where quality, safety, and innovation reign supreme.

Let’s work together to make recalls a thing of the past.

The year 2023 brought both progress and setbacks for the automotive industry. While electric vehicles continued their rise and autonomous driving technology advanced, a worrying trend emerged: a spike in car recalls. Over the last few years, several leading car brands have announced local or global recalls for safety-critical aspects such as airbags, brakes, steering wheels, emissions and more. Millions of vehicles were pulled off the road last year due to safety and performance issues, leading to inconvenience for drivers, financial losses for manufacturers, and reputational damage.

The South African automotive industry also saw its fair share of recalls in 2023, impacting thousands of vehicles and raising concerns about safety and quality control. While the global trend shows a decrease in recall events, South Africa experienced an increase in affected units, highlighting the need for proactive solutions.

But what if some of these recalls could have been prevented? Here’s where advanced vision and inspection systems come into play.Numbers: Despite a decrease in recall events globally (916 vs. 955 in 2022), the number of units affected increased by 23% (38.43 million), highlighting the severity of the issues. While official data for 2023 is still limited for SA, reports suggest several major recalls impacting popular car brands.Cost: The financial impact is significant, with estimates suggesting recalls cost automakers billions of dollars annually.Impact: These recalls affected thousands of vehicles, causing inconvenience and safety concerns for South African drivers.Causes: Like global trends, electrical system issues topped the list in South Africa, followed by concerns with powertrain, fuel systems, and airbags.

Local Expertise & Support: We understand the unique challenges of the South African automotive landscape and offer tailored solutions with local support.Improved Quality Control: We offer a range of inspection solutions, from 3D scanning for body weld integrity to automated visual inspection for component quality. These systems ensure consistent quality throughout the manufacturing process, minimising the risk of recalls.Data-Driven Decisions:  Manufacturers gain valuable insights into production trends and potential failure points by collecting and analysing inspection data. This data helps predict and prevent future problems, leading to proactive quality control strategies.Compliance & Efficiency: Our systems adhere to South African safety regulations and contribute to efficient production processes, boosting overall quality and competitiveness.

Automotive parts require permanent marking for quality control and traceability, which means you need a durable mark that can hold up against constant wear.
Every automotive company understands the importance of safety. However, some professionals may be unaware of how large a role automotive laser marking plays in ensuring this safety.

Laser marking machines help maintain part traceability in the automotive industry, promoting greater quality, efficiency and customer satisfaction.

Various parts, from car batteries to engine parts, can be marked!

Read more about laser marking automotive parts hereHistorically, lighting was often the last aspect specified, developed, and or funded, if at all. And this approach was not entirely unwarranted, as until
recently there was no real, vision-specific lighting on the market; lighting devices were often consumer-level incandescent or fluorescent lighting products.

Perhaps no other aspect of vision system design and implementation has consistently caused more delay, cost overruns, and general consternation than lighting.

Cognex offers a Lighting Advisor tool, this unique tool allows you to explore the effects of different lighting techniques and lighting positions on a range of typical items.

The automotive industry demands precision pattern-matching and alignment solutions for automotive metal stamped components including frame pieces, safety equipment, motors, and engines.

Automation systems rely on machine vision to calculate accurate coordinates, which robots use to pick and align sheet metal blanks with tool and die surfaces.

Automated precision stamping occurs under strict tolerances and spans a broad range of part types, materials, and specifications.

Industry-leading machine vision technology calculates the coordinates and rotational offsets of multiple blanks travelling on a conveyor simultaneously so that a robot can accurately place it into a staging machine or directly into a metal stamping machine.

This allows manufacturers to work with different patterns and edge finishes and pick up parts at a repeatable offset during high-speed production runs.

Contact our sales team to find out more about the machine vision solutions we have available, sales@tracesol.co.za.Historically, lighting was often the last aspect specified, developed, and or funded, if at all. And this approach was not entirely unwarranted, as until
recently there was no real, vision-specific lighting on the market; lighting devices were often consumer-level incandescent or fluorescent lighting products.

Perhaps no other aspect of vision system design and implementation has consistently caused more delay, cost overruns, and general consternation than lighting.

Cognex offers a Lighting Advisor tool, this unique tool allows you to explore the effects of different lighting techniques and lighting positions on a range of typical items.

The automotive industry demands precision pattern-matching and alignment solutions for automotive metal stamped components including frame pieces, safety equipment, motors, and engines.

Automation systems rely on machine vision to calculate accurate coordinates, which robots use to pick and align sheet metal blanks with tool and die surfaces.

Automated precision stamping occurs under strict tolerances and spans a broad range of part types, materials, and specifications.

Industry-leading machine vision technology calculates the coordinates and rotational offsets of multiple blanks travelling on a conveyor simultaneously so that a robot can accurately place it into a staging machine or directly into a metal stamping machine.

This allows manufacturers to work with different patterns and edge finishes and pick up parts at a repeatable offset during high-speed production runs.

Contact our sales team to find out more about the machine vision solutions we have available, sales@tracesol.co.za.Lighting is one of the most critical aspects of machine vision applications.

Failure to properly illuminate a target can result in the loss of information and productivity.

To understand this, you need to understand the material that the object is made from, its size, shape and finish. The object’s color is also important; even if the inspection system is monochromatic (a red part will reflect differently from a pink part).

All of these characteristics affect how light is reflected, and may pose challenges in creating a good image.

Lighting can also affect how your vision system analyzes an object and produces a workable image. You need proper focus and illumination to create a good image.

Images with poor contrast and uneven illumination require much more effort from the imaging device, which ultimately increases the processing time, and can increase the number of incorrect image analyses.