Innovation

Robotic inspection device that saves manufacturers valuable time and thousands of euro in error recall costs

Cork couple’s intelligent automation systems reduce production errors in industry

David and Enrika Moore, founders of Viska Automation Systems

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Olive Keogh
Thu Feb 15 2024 - 05:45

David and Enrika Moore originally set up Viska Automation Systems as a service provider to industry in 2015. As time went on, they realised that this was a difficult business model to scale. What they needed was a product as well as a service to sell and in 2019 they pivoted, using their expertise in engineering, AI, laser processing and computer numerical control to develop a suite of off-the-shelf automation products for industry.

Viska’s focus is intelligent automation that enables machines to move, think and see and its systems target a segment of the automation market not currently catered for – the application of deep learning AI to real world manufacturing. The company’s launch product is Visable, an automated robotic vision inspection solution aimed at those producing high-value goods such as medical devices and semiconductors.

“Automation and robotics have revolutionised modern production but visual quality inspection has largely remained a manual task. As human inspection isn’t always flawless, defects can slip through,” Enrika Moore explains. “Our answer was to combine the distinctive, but mutually enabling technologies of machine vision, robotics and software to create our Visable robot, which streamlines the inspection process and makes it more accurate than ever before.”

Robotic vision inspection is an invaluable tool for manufacturers, but it’s complicated to set up even for experienced engineers and the Moores saw this drawback as their opportunity to develop a solution that came as close as possible to “plug and play”.

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Viska does all the heavy lifting behind the scenes to build and adjust the system to the customer’s requirements and the customer gets an inspection solution that’s precise, time-saving and easy to use.

“Our customers see the return on their investment very quickly in terms of time saved and the reduction in errors,” Erika Moore says. “Manual visual inspection by a person takes around 45 minutes. With Visable it takes three minutes and we can potentially save a manufacturer thousands of euro in error recall costs. So far we have customers in Ireland, the UK, the US, Japan and China and our technology is currently inspecting around €1 billion worth of products every year.”

A Visable system costs upwards from €150,000, which has limited its appeal to companies of a certain size, so when it came to developing the company’s second product, the Moores went for something more mass market. Their recently launched PUP 100 is a small-footprint parts verification system aimed at the global medical devices sector. It costs about €5,000 and uses advanced machine vision technology to verify critical components. This reduces the potential for production errors and improves compliance and patient safety. The company’s third product, a video analytics hardware system with multiple applications, is at prototype stage and will be launched later this year.

Viska Automation Systems is based in Cork where it employs five people and is about to hire three more. Investment in product development to date has been in the order of €1 million, which was largely self-funded with backing from Cork North & West LEO.

Company co-founder David Moore is a graduate in computer-aided mechanical and manufacturing engineering and has a PhD in the laser processing of solar cells. Enrika Moore has a background in languages and a master’s degree in engineering management.

“Automation is a very competitive industry but our systems are at the leading edge of the market and with our third product close to launch, we now have a much clearer idea of how we can further scale our business,” Erika Moore says. “Having bootstrapped everything we’ve done so far, we’re warming up to the idea of outside investment as we recognise that with the right investor, who could bring market knowledge as well as money to the table, we could move a lot faster.”

roboticsAI (artificial intelligence)