Manufacturing Perfection

Manufacturing laser printers is a complex process involving many parts and stages. One of the most critical of these is the assembly that ultimately produces the printed page. To obtain the finished printed page laser printers utilize charged rollers that need to be as near perfect as possible to guarantee image quality. One major challenge is that these rollers are formed from layering of materials and can be defective at any one of these layers. Categorizing and determining the root cause and location of the defect is as critical as the identification and isolation itself.

Lexmark, Inc. – a world leader in printer manufacturing – required a solution that ensured that all their laser rollers were absolutely pristine. To achieve cost and production goals abandonment of human inspection systems for automation and efficiency was essential. Lexmark also realized that in order to achieve these goals would require a partner that could adapt to their manufacturing processes as well as provide the means to adjust the processes as required.

Immediately upon project initiation Lexmark found that new processes, robotics and other systems had to be implemented alongside the existing processes to keep production going. With the complexities Lexmark did significant due diligence and selected Boulder Imaging as their partner. They knew that Boulder Imaging could handle the complexities of the vision inspection required as well as the integration demands. The Boulder Imaging’s team quickly was able to provide a proof of concept and illustrate that a system for categorizing and re-inspection of defects would exceed Lexmark’s goals.

Implementation Results

In addition to other savings, Lexmark’s productions costs have been slashed in excess of 40% each year directly due to Boulder Imaging’s Beacon Vision Inspector systems. Beacon is designed to inspect, identify, and classify defects of the printer drum cylinders. Information about defects is communicated with robotics for physical segregation. Process control stations provide the operator with a direct view of all defective parts that have been found along with the ability to input additional classification data. The systems run continually 7/24/365 collecting and providing data for automated action and improved decision making.

Boulder Imaging’s President, Michael Willis states, “The ROI of our system for Lexmark is in the high 6 figures each year. Beacon not only has identified defects it’s provided massive process improvements, production and defect reporting, and root cause analysis. Lexmark’s savings are typical of the extraordinary results we provide to customers.”