TEXTILES.ORG
AMETEK Surface Vision, a provider of online surface inspection solutions, is helping nonwoven material manufacturers meet increased demands for the production of personal protective equipment (PPE).
The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly increased demand for a wide range of medical clothing that meets regulatory standards for healthcare and hygiene, including protective masks, gowns, caps and scrub suits. As nonwoven materials provide critical air permeability while protecting against airborne particles, these properties must be protected to ensure they are safe to use.
Surface Vision’s inspection and monitoring solutions provide the required quality and consistency by identifying typical material defects across a range of nonwoven production processes, even at the high-speed production volumes required to support the manufacture of single-use items.
Surface Vision’s SmartView® and SmartAdvisor® systems perform real-time detection and classification needed to identify nonwoven material defects. Uniting web inspection and monitoring capabilities, imperfections are captured by a combination of synchronized high-resolution color camera technologies and LED lighting arrays using multiple inspection angles. Real-time detection of nonwoven defects is achieved by automatically identifying and visualizing product imperfections and diagnosing the root cause of the imperfection.
The systems are completely modular in design, they can be expanded or upgraded whenever needed to meet changing customer requirements, such as those experienced currently.