IIT KGP devices AI-based system to inspect quality of MSME goods

The portable Artificial Intelligence-based device is for automatic inspection of goods manufactured in MSMEs

IIT Kharagpur researchers have developed a portable Artificial Intelligence-based device for automatic inspection of goods manufactured in MSMEs, an institute spokesperson said on Thursday.

The innovation will immensely benefit the micro, small and medium enterprises, which rely on manual checking and incur losses when an entire batch is rejected if a few samples turn out to be faulty during random inspections, he said.

The portable device will click pictures of products when set up on a batch of goods and send the feed to the AI- based software for quality control, the spokesperson said.

The research team, comprising Professors Surjya K Pal and Debashish Chakravarty, technical staffer Pravanjan Nayak and intern Ayan Banerjee from Jalpaiguri Government Engineering College, has filed a patent for the system, which will be made available to MSMEs to license the technology, he said.

"MSMEs mostly rely on manual inspection, wherein a few samples are randomly selected and checked based on which the entire batch is accepted or rejected. This lacks effectiveness and increases the cost of production.

"Our system can inspect each product in a batch at a low cost. Automation is one of the key aspects of digitalisation and also the need of the hour," Professor Pal, who heads the Centre of Excellence in Advanced Manufacturing Technology of the institute, said.

The MSME sector, which employs over 10 crore people in the country and contributes nearly 30 per cent of India's GDP and 50 per cent of export revenue, is still outside the ambit of industry-scale adoption of artificial intelligence and machine learning, he added.