parameter that can be set in order to adjust the results of
the automatic system to fit the human capability of
defect detection with the naked eye.
The reliability of the automatic system has not only
been proven in the mentioned test, where the system
results have been compared to human-inspection
results through 70 h of pulp production, but also the
automatic results are compared daily to those of the
less frequent human inspections ever since their
installation in the mentioned factories. Fig. 6 shows
one of the daily comparisons of the automatic system
and the manual inspection.
Once the reliability of the automatic system has
been proven, its results can be concluded to be more
accurate than the manual ones due to its much higher
sample rate, which ensures the detection of important
and rare impurities. This cleanliness measurement
also provides more reliability than the human one due
to the objectiveness of the inspection over time.
The much higher inspection rate of the automatic
system, up to 250 times the manual rate, yields a
quicker detection of cleanliness changes in the
product, which can be of around 30 min in advance.
This fact allows a quicker response of the production
actuators in order to obtain better a quality of produced
pulp in terms of cleanliness.
The results of the inspection are stored in a local
Data Base and monitored on-line. The images of the
detected impurities can also be stored and visualized
for human supervision. All the stored data is
transmitted to the production computers on demand,
allowing both an on-line final product classification
and an immediate human action depending on the online
detected cleanliness.