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【2020 Application Example】 AI constructs the best coating model to reduce the inspection cost of scrap electrical steel sheets, saving NT$2 million per year

Surface treatment applications face rising costs and talent gaps

The development of metal surface treatment technology affects the quality of aerospace, automobile, machinery, home appliance, communications, and fastener products sold domestically and exported. At the same time, it plays a pivotal role in domestic smart machinery, national defense, and circular economy in the " 5+2 Industrial Innovation Plan." According to 2018 survey statistics, the output value of the metal surface treatment industry reached NT$151.5 billion, an increase of 3.6% compared to 2017.

However, metal surface treatment is a labor-intensive, energy-consuming, and pollution-intensive industry. It has long suffered from a shortage of professional and technical talent, and the tightening of environmental regulations has caused processing costs to continue to rise. As a result, the industry is facing a crisis of survival and a crisis of competition from international high-value supply chains.

Manual quality control faces market challenges, while the coating process has found new opportunities

Overseas markets currently account for 70% of the revenue of a domestic steel plate coating plant. It expanded into the automotive steel, diverse supply chain, and various special steel product markets in 2016. It is imperative to improve the quality of surface treatment through innovative technologies, in order to seize international markets.

In the continuous steel plate coating process, the price difference between finished steel plate products and defective products is about 10 times. Manual inspection is used in the current stage. During the production process, 10 m needs to be cut from each steel coil and becomes fixed inspection waste, incurring a significant amount of cost for waste materials, and also delaying production. At the same time, the instability in manual inspection quality also makes production quality unstable.

The Southern Taiwan Industry Promotion Center (STIPC) utilized the guidance capabilities it accumulated over a decade in Southern Taiwan, and matched the steel plate coating plant’s pain point with an AI optical measurement technology service provider. This reduced the cost of consumables used in steel plate inspection, and reduce errors caused by fatigue during manual inspection.

Stabilizing steel plate coating quality with optical measurement technology

In order to control the quality of the coating process, image recognition must be used to identify product yield. General measurement technology requires contact to detect the thickness of coating. Therefore, the STIPC match the plant with an AI optical measurement technology service provider to assist in the development of a non-contact optical measuring instrument, record coating data, and then compare the data to obtain the best process parameters.

Illustration of 3D non-contact measuring instrument testing

▲Illustration of 3D non-contact measuring instrument testing

Presentation of measuring instrument data

▲Presentation of measuring instrument data

Rapid scanning through AOI achieves non-contact measurement. It can quickly scan the profile and overall dimensions of the object being measured without directly making contact with the product or damaging the surface of the steel plate. It can immediately control coating thickness and quality of steel plates without increasing cost. We hope to calculate data of the process environment and design the product abnormality warning range, so that it can be used to make the process smarter.

In the future, this solution will further detect surface defects and color differences of finished steel plates to reduce the proportion of discarded material, solve the problem of the gap in professional and technical talent, and improve product yields.

Schematic diagram of non-contact measuring instrument

▲Schematic diagram of non-contact measuring instrument

Establish an AI coating model to create world-class steel plate supply standards

With the guidance of the STIPC in 2020, the steel plate coating plant accelerated the application of advanced process technology and established quantified indicators of surface treatment process quality standards, which will help domestic surface treatment companies produce high-quality electrical steel sheets, and is expected to increase the product price by 2%.

In addition, it can also assist companies in the industry obtain heat treatment certifications for high-value aerospace, electric vehicle, fastener, and aerospace products, increasing the industry’s added value through innovative thinking, and continuing to lead the metal industry forward.

Recommend Cases

這是一張圖片。 This is a picture.
CCTV Intelligent Video Search System

Search for a specific person, find someone with a suitcase entering the factory in Gao'an area Color features of the person and the object confirmed, person in blue and black top, suitcase in black color, throughCCTV the intelligent video search system, by setting object and color retrieval conditions, it can successfully locate three video clips containing the target subject This greatly aids operational staff in finding the target items, and through this system, search speed can far surpass manual effort6fold Pain Points The CSE-Kaohsiung Plant is densely equippedCCTVto monitor every corner of the plant area, but when an incidenthappens, it's impossible within a limited time throughCCTVvideo playback to find the incident, the implications and risks behind this are self-evident Many areas that are usually unmanned can easily become security blind spots Thus, how to monitor a vast plant area more intelligently and effectively is one of the crucial aspects of building a smart plant for 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Translation date:2024-12-12」

【導入案例】維繫遊艇王國美譽 嘉信遊艇導入國內第一套FRP複材超音波智慧檢測
Maintaining the reputation of the “Kingdom of Yachts” - Kha Shing Enterprise introduces the first domestic FRP ultrasonic smart inspection of composite materials

The Kaohsiung-based Kha Shing Enterprise Co, Ltd was established over 40 years ago, and is Taiwan's largest customized yacht company with customers all over America, Europe, Asia, and Australia, earning Taiwan the reputation of the "Kingdom of Yachts" Current FRP hull inspection still relies on traditional methods, such as visual inspection and knocking sounds, which is time-consuming and labor-intensive Kha Shing has applied PAUT array ultrasonic inspection to hull FRP composite materials for the first time, and combined it with AI to interpret ultrasound images, develop complete intelligent solutions, and create emerging markets for inspection companies Kha Shing Enterprise Co, Ltd was formerly Kha Shing Wood Industry Co, Ltd, and was a factory specializing in wood import in Kaohsiung Linhai Industrial Park when it was first established It began to design, manufacture, and sell yachts in 1977 After the second-generation successor of the company, President Kung Chun-Hao entered the company, he made a breakthrough in the previous manufacturing model that relied mainly on the skills of master craftsmen, introduced digital manufacturing to accelerate shipbuilding, and began to make larger yachts, ranking in the top 20 manufacturers worldwide among manufacturers of large yachts over 24 feet It also set a record of delivering 94 yachts within one year, earning Taiwan the reputation of "Kingdom of Yachts" Defect detection ensures yacht quality, using AI to replace humans to achieve higher efficiency Defect detection is very important to ensuring yacht quality At present, the yacht industry still uses very traditional defect detection methods The hull structure is usually made by hand lay-up or the vacuum infusion process, using visual inspection or knocking and the frequency of the sound to determine defects It requires time-consuming manual inspection If there are any defects, they must be reworked and repaired, and a gel coat subsequently sprayed The hull must be constructed in sections to facilitate inspection For large yachts over 24 meters long, construction in sections is very time-consuming and labor-intensive To shorten the time of the yacht manufacturing process, Kha Shing Enterprise will first carry out the gel coating process for the hull, and then perform the hand lay-on process The hull manufacturing process has two types of composite material test specimen structures In terms of 54-foot yacht hulls, the hull contains gel coat, core material, fiber and resin, and the total thickness is about 32cmplusmn01cm, which is twice the total thickness of FRP hull without core material of about 16cmplusmn01cm Defects such as incomplete impregnation of glass fiber or residual air bubbles between glass fiber and resin occasionally occur during the manufacturing process The types of defects include insufficient resin, voids, and delamination Once defects occur, the supply of hull materials will be insufficient and yacht delivery will be delayed Schematic diagram of types of FRP hull In order to solve this problem, Kha Shing Enterprise has engaged in technical cooperated with the metal materials industry and the AI technology industry, combining the ultrasonic inspection expertise of the metal materials industry with AI technologies developed by the AI technology industry in recent years to help solve issues of Kha Shing Enterprise with defect detection The method uses PAUT on the composite material structure of yachts, conducts FRP ultrasonic evaluation to determine the thickness of the yacht hull and material properties, and evaluates the ultrasonic probe frequency applicable to the hull structure based on professional ultrasonic experience After testing, a frequency of 5MHz and a probe width of 45mm can successfully find the location and size of defects in the simulated defect test specimen The three parties jointly found defect detection solutions from array ultrasonic evaluation, AI technology model development, and actual application in yachts The image inspected is an ultrasound image The image displays different colors based on the ultrasonic feedback signal An AI model that automatically identifies defective parts is established through the YOLO algorithm If the amount of abnormal data collected is insufficient for training, the CNN-based Autoencoder algorithm is used to collect normal image data for training and construct an AI model for abnormality detection The object detection YOLO model is trained by inputting image data marked as having defects, while the abnormality detection model is trained by inputting image data without defects Simulated defective specimen corresponding to PAUT results Defect detection by and AI system can shorten the construction period by 15 months and speed up determination by 50 After the development of this AI system is completed, it will be validated on actual 54-foot yachts of Kha Shing Enterprise, and can effectively resolve issues with defects The application of AI technology in ultrasonic inspection for intelligent determination is expected to accelerate determination by approximately 50, and will also shortens the construction period by 15 months, effectively improving the speed and quality of the yacht manufacturing process As Taiwan develops larger and more refined yachts, it will create opportunities for industry optimization and transformation, as well as opportunities for the development of key technologies The application of an AI ultrasonic inspection solution for composite materials is the first of its kind in the yacht industry, and is expected to attract more yacht manufacturers with inspection needs The AI ultrasonic inspection solution for composite materials has three major competitive advantages 1 Professional inspection experience and digital database to facilitate process management and analysis 2 Automatic AI determination and identification quickly identifies defects and provides immediate feedback to process engineers 3 High-efficiency process inspection provides defect repair recommendations, reduces damage rate, and improves the strength and quality of composite materials The application of AI technology can optimize the yacht manufacturing process, reduce manual inspection, create added value through the application of AI in Taiwanrsquos yacht industry, increase international purchase orders, and allow Taiwan yachts to continue to enjoy a good reputation in the world Furthermore, this business model has also spread to fields of application related to composite materials, increasing cross-sector market usage It is estimated to contribute approximately NT14 to NT2 billion in economic benefits to Taiwan's equipment maintenance and non-destructive testing market

【導入案例】哈瑪星科技建構AI模型管理平台 加速AI落地應用
Hamastar Technology Builds an AI Model Management Platform to Accelerate the Application of AI

Riding the AI hype train, financial service providers are using their solid foundation in the industry to not only transform themselves, but also assist their customers with transformation Hamastar Technology, which has been established for over two decades, has been developing AI technology and assisting industry customers with the implementation of AI in recent years Hamastar Technology believes that to implement a complete AI project, in addition to AI theoretical knowledge, data analysis, and model training capabilities, it is also necessary to develop APIs for data, establish databases, develop front-end RWD web pages, and even consider layout design and user experience based on customer needs These tasks create technical barriers for AI startups Even from the perspective of companies that have reached a certain scale, it is hard to accumulate technical experience and accelerate business growth due repeatedly investing manpower developing similar functions in each project Institutional customers still require high level of customization for AI Using the requirements of government Agency A implemented by Hamastar Technology as an example, users must control false information from specific channels The platform needs to provide data ingestion functions for training models and predictions, and can complete natural language processing NLP text classification model training and use When the model discovers false information, it needs to immediately notify responsible personnel through messaging software The need of Agency B is to use an AI model to automatically classify petitions and immediately provide information on past cases as reference for the petitioner or officer Although the project models are similar data ingestion, model prediction, warning notification, the required functions still need to be separately developed for individual projects, and existing programs and models cannot be reused to speed up the implementation of subsequent projects After in-depth discussion, Hamastar Technology found that pain points of enterprises implementing AI projects include high implementation costs and lengthy project schedules It is difficult for a single enterprise to simultaneously have data scientists, analysts, engineers, and designers Current projects are all focused on solving the needs of specific fields, and it is difficult to reuse the AI models in other fields of application At the same time, the tools are concentrated in AI projects and cannot provide customers with total solutions In other words, due to the "limited manpower," "restricted fields," and "insufficient tools" of AI service providers, the implementation of AI technology projects requires high costs or lengthy timelines These are common problems that companies urgently need to solve Therefore, if there is an AI model application service management platform, it will be able to solve the above difficulties and not only reduce costs, but also accelerate project implementation and provide customers with one-stop solutions AI model application service management platform assists in quickly completing projects Therefore, with the support of the AI project of the Industrial Development Bureau, Ministry of Economic Affairs, Hamastar Technology carried out the "AI Model Application Service Management Platform AISP RampD Project" and engaged in the RampD of AISP products The purpose is for AI service providers to complete the AI projects with twice the result using only half the effort The AISP provides one-stop AI solutions AI service providers can quickly assemble required functions, such as data API, model management, and model prediction result monitoring subscription through existing module functions of the AISP It also provides commonly used graphical tools to help companies quickly design interactive charts or dashboards required by users, effectively reducing the labor costs required to execute projects, shortening the solution POC or implementation time, and accelerating the implementation and diffusion of industry AI In terms of product business model, in the short term, the company will extensively invite IT service providers with expertise in the field of AI to work together, and use platform services to solve the AI implementation problems faced by requesting units in various field, gradually building trust in the platform brand In the mid-term, the company hopes to gradually expand the market based on its past success, and form strategic alliances with multiple IT service providers to solve more and wider problems in specialized fields and provide more solutions for units to choose from The platform combines field experts to jointly expand overseas markets In the long term, after establishing AI strategic alliances in various specialized fields, the platform will have a large number of AI solution experts for specialized fields After accumulating a large amount of successful project experience, Hamastar Technology hopes that the AISP will be able to work with experts companies to expand into the international market Harmastar Technology Co, Ltd was formed in 2000 by recruiting numerous senior professional managers and technical experts in related fields It is committed to software technology RampD and services, and aims to develop into an international software company, actively creating opportunities for international cooperation in the industry Under the excellent leadership of its first president, the company has rapidly grown into a major software company in Taiwan