P2i

P2i, a leader in liquid repellent nano-coatings, found that their manual quality assurance process for their Dunkable waterproof coating was leading to critical defect escapes reaching downstream customers. Coating defects are particularly challenging because coatings are translucent, variations are subtle, and defects are irregular -- making traditional vision systems and manual inspection inadequate. Their UK-based engineering team needed to oversee manufacturing in China.

P2i deployed Instrumental's platform for end-to-end quality control from development through production. The AI detected 78 unique defect types including missing material, incomplete coverage, and overflow that manual inspectors were inconsistent at catching. UK-based engineers pushed tests live to lines in China and tuned them remotely. The cloud-based platform provided shared visibility between P2i and their downstream smartphone client.

P2i reduced manual inspector headcount by 50% while maintaining 110 UPH throughput. Engineering efficiency tripled, with one engineer able to solve the same number of issues that previously required 2-3 engineers. Factory travel was reduced by more than 65%. All issues reported by the downstream smartphone client were eliminated, and the team maintained full quality operations remotely during COVID-19 travel bans.

• AI vision systems excel at detecting amorphous and translucent coating defects that are nearly impossible for manual inspectors
• Remote test management enables engineers to create, tune, and deploy quality tests across global factories without travel
• End-to-end platform deployment from development through production provides compounding quality improvements over time