DataMan code reader reads bar codes

A food factory processes Turkey, pork, beef and chicken through a variety of packaging methods, including dehazing, stacking and forging. The meat products are boxed and transported to the cold storage via a conveyor line. "As these products move out of our factory and into the warehouse, full visualization of the product is important.

Laser bar code readers used in the past encountered the problem of high rejection rates. Part of the difficulty was caused by production lines running at high speeds of 200 feet per minute. For example, packages come in all shapes and sizes and there's also a good chance that the box will skew as it descends on the transporter.

We tried using an image-based code reading technology, Cognex DataMan 500 reader, and after further tweaks to the DataMan 500, we achieved a read rate of 99.99%. During the final installation phase, two DataMan 500 units were redundantly configured to achieve a 100% read rate. Only boxes with missing or severely damaged barcodes are now unreadable.

The DataMan 500 captures an image of the entire package and then locates the code anywhere, so the location and orientation of the code are irrelevant. The code can be printed directly to the box, saving the time of manually attaching labels to each box. The code can be placed anywhere in the box, so that the code can be placed in the specified location according to the customer's request. The DataMan 500 automatically logs failed images and stores them on the server. Engineers can view these images to determine the cause of the failure. This provides a troubleshooting mechanism that reduces the time it takes to resolve code print issues.