Parsytec AG sets world market leadership in automatic strip steel inspection systems

Citation

(1999), "Parsytec AG sets world market leadership in automatic strip steel inspection systems", Sensor Review, Vol. 19 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/sr.1999.08719cab.002

Parsytec AG sets world market leadership in automatic strip steel inspection systems

Parsytec AG sets world market leadership in automatic strip steel inspection systems

Keywords Inspection, Machine vision, Parsytec

Only 18 months after introducing the world's first completely softwarebased surface inspection system for strip steel on the worldwide market in early 1997, Parsytec of Aachen has sold 19 systems to leading steelmakers worldwide and is now market leader measured in orders received.

Together with further consolidation of its leadership in the steel sector, the company is now planning to expand its inspection business into the markets for other strip products such as aluminium, paper and plastics. The worldwide production volume for quality strip products exceeds DM 800 billion a year, but automatic surface inspection systems are still used in fewer than 5 per cent of the world's production lines, although the trend is sharply upwards.

To establish the structures needed to finance the strong growth expected in the near future, the firm became a public limited company with effect from 1 September, 1998.

The production of high-grade strip steel has to meet rigorous demands, for example from the car industry, either for a zero-defect surface quality or for the quality to be technically documented in full.

In 1997, after two years of development, Parsytec AG demonstrated a world first: Parsytec HTS-2 family of completely software-based automatic inspection systems. The product offers an accurate and comprehensive quality assessment of the entire surface of the steel strip, with precise detection of defects and their position on the strip, at full production speed.

This allows rapid and reliable decisions on the quality of the material and of its suitability for use: in particular whether it is ready for delivery to the customer or whether it has to be reworked. Additionally, the direct feedback of the precise inspection data permits optimization of the production processes, giving opportunities for yield management methodologies similar to that pioneered in the semiconductor industry.

Since the initial presentation, 19 such systems have been ordered, at an average price of about one million marks each, by the world's leading steel producers: names such as Thyssen Krupp Stahl AG in Germany, POSCO in Korea, Arbed in Luxembourg, Nucor Steel in the USA, and others. This has taken Parsytec AG to the position of world market leader, measured in orders received, for strip steel inspection systems in only one and a half years.

Falk Kuebler, CEO of Parsytec AG: "Our clients take the view that a critical problem in the production of high-grade strip steel, which has been unsolved for a long time, has finally been solved. The decisive factor in our success is the 100 per cent implementation in software. This means that on top of the very good detection results the product can be adapted to specific customer requirements and to the various phases of steel production within an extremely short time." This makes the Parsytec HTS-2 the first and only system which can be used in all process phases of strip steel production, i.e. even at the hot mill at temperatures over 800 degrees.

Additionally, as software systems they can be upgraded at any time, putting them always at the cutting edge of the technology. Another technical innovation is for the first time the use of standard video technology and of mass-market Pentium IITM PCs, programmed in parallel.

In the future Parsytec will expand the product range beyond the steel market to other strip products such as aluminium, paper and plastics. With world production volume for quality strip products exceeding DM 800 billion a year, automatic surface inspection systems are still used in fewer than 5 per cent of the world's production lines, although the trend is sharply upwards.

"The need for automatic surface inspection systems is enormous, and is to be found wherever the quality of the surface is decisive for the usability and value of the final strip product," says Kuebler. "Integrated surface quality control here will create enormous future opportunities for productivity gains, in the billions of marks, for example by avoiding the expensive reworking of lower-grade or defective materials."

Here, it is once again the reliance on software which allows the Parsytec series of products to be set up for operation with widely differing strip materials within very short time-frames, allowing new markets to be opened up rapidly. This is demonstrated by the success of initial pilot installations at aluminium and paper makers such as VAW Vereinigte Aluminium Werke in Germany and Sihl in Switzerland.

In its business year which ended on 31 August, 1998, Parsytec had sales of DM 24 million. For the current business year, the company plans a 45 per cent increase in sales to DM 35 million, with sales of surface inspection systems jumping from 6.3 million to 23 million marks.

For further information contact Friedrich Luecking, Marketing Manager/PR, Parsytec AG, Auf der Huls 183, D-52086 Aachen, Germany. Tel: (+49) 241-96 96-200; Fax; (+49) 241-96 96-500; e-mail: lue@parsytec.de; URL: www.parsytec.de