Technical support saves customers' development time

The most effective way to start the development of new products is by engaging technical support for one or two days. This is the most important role that Gustav von Heijne and his colleagues have at the Parameter technical support section.

– Two days of technical consultancy from Parameter saves many customers several weeks of work, says Gustav von Heijne. It is important that our customers get a fast and effective start to their projects, and as customer requirements vary largely, each commisssion and training programme is specifically tailored to the needs and goals of each customer.

– Sometimes commissions will expand to a point where we also help the customer with application development, Gustav von Heijne continues. Capod Systems, which can be read about in this issue of Parameter News, is an example, where we helped program the intelligent hand-held area camera with its built-in processor. As the image information is processed in the camera itself, the system does not require a framegrabber card.

The endresult is a portable camera - laptop computer system with a serial communication link between the two. Even if far-reaching developmental collaborations would be possible, Parameter is somewhat cautious in that regard, so as to avoid competitive situations with developers, who also are Parameter's clients. Our goal is for the customer to fully utilise the technology, which often means that we advise him on how to solve a problem, usually by way of a training programme. This can, as in one case,mean that the training programme is tailored with regard to the client's own prototypes and performance requirements. The result was that the client found the solution to his problem while the training programme was under way.

Before purchase

A common situation is that the client calls us before knowing exactly what to buy. Our product experience and technical expertise enables us to in most cases directly advise on the best technical solution.A more advanced query would result in a feasibility study on the customer's behalf. –The most successful feasibility studies are those undertaken together with customers who have a deep knowledge in their field, to which we supply the expertise on how to best make use of our products, explains Gustav von Heijne.

The right focus

Within the field of Vision it is common to focus on technical performance, but in many cases the solution may be a simple one, using the right combination of camera and light source, instead of employing advanced programming and image analyses. – This was precisely what happened to a client who wanted to use a camera to inspect the component quality of the products he made, says Gustav von Heijne. I could practically demonstrate how lighting from one side made it possible to even see residual stamping burrs. These defects were not of specific interest for assessing quality; but a change in the lighting made it possible to solely see the defects that had an effect on quality.

Optics increasingly important

Today it is important to choose the correct camera optics. The cameras of today have a high resolution,which means that the composite image pixel gets smaller and smaller for each new and improved model. But this also means that the optics need to improve correspondingly for the high resolution to be put to use. –It is not a good idea to purchase an expensive image analysis programme and use low resolution optics, Gustav von Heijne explains. We have created a knowledge base in conjunction with our products; courses within the different fields, allowing the client to increase his knowledge within the various Vision disciplines.

Today we have standardised courses in both Vision technology (camera techniques, lighting, optics and framegrabbers) and image analysis for the different fields, using software programmes such as CVB Image Manager, CVB Tools and Sherlock 32. – As our support section consists of three people in Sweden and one in Finland, our resources are by no means limitless, but we are continuously on the search for qualified personnel, Gustav von Heijne concludes.