Finland-based OCR and automation specialist Visy is set to unveil a new system for processing container damage inspection images at the TOC Global Showcase on Thursday, 3 June.

TOC Global Showcase is the three-week long series of online events featuring keynotes, networking, and solution discovery with industry leaders and technical experts that runs from 31 May to 18 June. 

Automated damage inspection is an idea that has been talked about before, but has so far proved to be difficult to implement. Camera technology and OCR software to read container numbers, license plates, hazardous cargo signs and other character-based identifiers is highly developed and very well accepted technology. Identifying container damage, however, requires making a judgement about the condition of a container, which is a much more difficult challenge.

Damage inspection is big business. Containers can be inspected for condition on arrival at a facility to prevent exposure to liability for repairs, and at different stages of equipment interchange process before loading and returning. The ability to automate some or all of these inspections holds considerable potential for cost savings, as well as improving efficiency.

Earlier attempts to develop automated damage inspection technology focused on using optical sensors to “find” holes, dents deformation and other damage points, but so far it has proven to very difficult to get reliable results with this type of technology.

Visy has now developed software that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to learn to recognise instances of container damages from images generated by its standard OCR camera systems. This is made possible by the development of AI software and the huge data set of container image Visy has built up over years.

John Lund, Director Marketing and Sales at Visy, will present this new development during the second Spotlight on Automation session on Thursday, 3 June.