Our company is a maker of medium capacity solenoid operated directional valves used mostly for hydraulic systems. We make a wide variety of medium-sized value for various uses. In an effort to further perfected our valves, we developed an automatic inspection system which is employed at the production level to thoroughly test our valves before they are shipped to the customer.
For the construction of this system, special considerations have been given to following points; (1) We adopted a method to automatically inspect these valves without of carrying out any changes to the valves themselves by using special test plates which circulate within the system. (2) We design a method, using this system, which has the capability of automatically analyzing the various types of valves, thus making it suitable for the above-mentioned production level.
By using this system, the products' quality is more reliable and the production level steadier than in the past, which has resulted in a sharp decrease in the number of claims for service after delivery. The capacity of this system under regular working conditions is approximately 6, 000 units per month and the workforce can be reduced by about 3 compared with the conventional hand-operated system. As a result of this system, the manufacturing costs to produce these valves has been reduced by approximately 4%.

View full abstract