Implementing AOI

First, we expect that your equipment supplier would help you with this. Then again with lots of used equipment flying around, some of the basic stuff often gets pushed to the back of the bus.

Second, here is a clip and paste on the basics of equipment acceptance testing ...

Equipment Acceptance Testing The purpose of post-installation acceptance tests is to insure that the capital equipment operates correctly and meets the following criteria: * Standards of design, construction and functioning, for capital equipment as specified in applicable government regulations; * Purchase contract specifications; and/or * Original equipment manufacturer specifications. Acceptance tests shall be performed on every diagnostic system or major equipment system component purchased prior to routine service. The Quality Assurance Committee [QAC] shall be directly involved in the equipment acceptance testing phase to ensure that the equipment meets the specifications indicated in the purchase agreement. The QA program shall provide documented guidelines to assist the QAC in developing the appropriate acceptance testing protocol for all major equipment purchases. The protocol shall be incorporated into every purchase specification. The content of the guidelines shall be determined by management with participation from the QAC, but the following elements are considered essential: * List of the equipment specifications and tolerances; * Conformance standards and the tolerance limits for each parameter to be tested; * List of the equipment required to test each parameter; * Detailed method (protocol) of testing for each parameter; * Schedule for the completion of each test; * List of the persons authorized to perform or witness the acceptance tests; and * List of the persons responsible for authorizing the acceptance of each test. The report on the acceptance tests results shall contain all of the information listed above including the actual data with graphs, charts and test films for each equipment parameter tested. This report shall be retained as part of the equipment performance log book and used to compare with future QC test results to assess the continued acceptability of the equipment's performance and estimate the equipment's remaining useful life.

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I'd think about database structure and programming aspects as well. I'm cleaning up an implementation where the parts were taught as they appeared to the AOI programmer irrespective of the Pick & Place data/libraries. Lots of rotation fixes, parts not linked to a library, resulting in parts that don't autoteach as they should and programs that perform poorly. How you determine the strength of the AOI inspection, robustness of models, variation tolerance, false calls and false accepts depends on the platform - the vendor should provide training which you can use as a starting point.

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