Maintaining quality control by simply pointing a finger

For production operations, quality assurance over the process chain is indispensible - it is the only way to detect problems at an early stage and lower additional costs.

Fraunhofer researchers have developed an efficient quality control method, which at the gesture of a pointing finger, enables employees to input detected defects to car body parts into the inspection system, and document them there.

The non-contact gesture-detection process will be on display at the 2013 Hannover Messe from 8 to 12 April.

With utter meticulousness, quality control inspectors examine a car bumper for defects in the paint work – ultimately, only impeccable body parts are sent to final assembly.

If they find a defect in the paint, just pointing a finger is all it would take to send the information on the defect to the QS inspection system, store it and document it.

Employees obtain visual feedback through a monitor that displays a 3D reconstruction of the bumper. At first glance, it might seem completely futuristic, though soon enough, it could become an everyday part of quality assurance.