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

    Kolkata, Dec 3 (PTI) 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. PTI SUS
ACD ACD

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)