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Optical Character Recognition Tech for F&B industry
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Tuesday, 01 October, 2013, 08 : 00 AM [IST]
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Didier Lacroix
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fiogf49gjkf0d Regulations worldwide drive the need for OCR
Barcodes are a traditional solution, but consumers cannot read. Hence manufacturers are turning to optical character recognition (OCR) technology using vision systems that can read alphanumeric text, as well as 1-D barcodes and 2-D Data Matrix codes.
Food Safety Modernisation Act: US Gets Serious About Food Safety
The FDA, in coordination with the produce industry, will create a new method of tracking and tracing fruits and vegetables so that any contaminated produce is located, recalled and it applies to domestic and foreign food producers selling goods.
What is OCR Machine Vision?
Machine vision systems with OCR tools provide four functions for food and beverage operations processing and packaging operations:
- Presence: To check that product descriptions and tracking text have been printed on the product
- Track and trace
- Identification: Ensure the label matches the product, barcode and/or Data Matrix codes
- Verification: Verify that correct characters are printed clearly for customer safety and brand management.
- These acquire product pictures on production line and analyse using OCR tools that locate text string and “reads” alphanumeric codes. It can be configured to do one or multiple tasks, depending on manufacturer requirement.
Benefits of OCR technology for F&B industries
OCR technology can benefit food & beverage manufacturers by
- Accelerated response times – Gives manufacturer information to take action.
- Reduced liability – Incorrectly marked packages that include allergens or contaminated food and beverages can be identified to the problem source back to the supplier.
- Improved productivity – Increases process efficiency by eliminating human intervention.
- Simplified production – Human readable, augmenting 1-D barcodes and 2-D data matrix codes markings.
Common applications for OCR systems
- Ingredient/raw material receiving and real-time production tracking
- Date code accuracy and legibility
- Lot code and batch verification
- Expiration date and label verification
- Mold cavity print quality inspection and verification (e.g., bottles and containers)
- Label placement, quality, and brand management
- Automated warehouse, picking, and shipping data management
- Expedited product returns and customer credits
OCR applications for F&B manufacturers
OCR tools can verify sell-by date and batch codes on even the highest-volume production lines.
OCR tools read, verify the presence of allergen information on food and beverage packages to keep consumers safer.
OCR tools need to have the ?exibility and robustness to read many different code variations on any type of surface.
OCR tools verify presence and correctness of strings so that information is communicated to the supply chain.
OCR tools deliver robust read performance that distinguishes between mismatches and bad reads.
OCR tools allow a vision system to read text even when there is little contrast between type and background.
6 questions to ask when choosing OCR technology in a vision system
- Can the OCR software read any printed font?
- Can it read text when there is little contrast between the text and background (coloured text or background noise), with a lot of letter-to-letter variation, skewed letters, or touching letters?
- Can it read text strings that are poorly printed, scratched, or with washed-out characters?
- Can it read text regardless of surface type, including glass, metal, cardboard, ceramic, and plastic?
When evaluating OCR software: Features to look for in an OCR tool Pre-processing and image correction
Many OCR software tools will not include image correction and filtering as part of their toolset as it slows down inspection speed. Machine vision systems feature pre-processing and image correction in their OCR tool to improve contrast, correct for changing lighting conditions and filter out background noise in the image.
Segmentation
Tools such as OCRMax from Cognex use special segmentation rules that allow customers to train system on virtually any printed font with exception of scripts (cursive writing).
A cautionary example
In May and June 2011, strain of Escherichia coli O104:H4 bacteria caused outbreak of food-borne illness in northern Germany, resulting in 50 deaths. Implementing reliable, automated optical character recognition functionality would provide benefits for food and beverage industries.
Classification and fielding
Advanced OCR tools use segmentation, classification and fielding to improve read accuracy.
The future of OCR-enabled vision systems in F&B industry
As government regulations and the public’s demand for safer products increase, food and beverage manufacturers will need to deploy machine vision systems with OCR functionality to address these challenges. It will need to be robust, scalable and dynamic enough to adapt to changes in the production process.
(The author is senior VP, international sales and marketing, Cognex. He can be contacted at lacroix.didier@cognex.com)
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