Wiesbaden, June 3, 2014 – More than 1,000 successfully implemented inspection systems at more than 70 end customers and over ten years’ experience in photovoltaic production make VITRONIC a sought-after partner for solar cell producers.
Following the resounding success of automated, camera-technology-based quality controls in most production facilities in the Western world and several Asian countries, this technology is now starting to be used in major solar cell factories in China. Manual visual inspections are simply unable to compete with the latest machine vision technology from either a qualitative or a cost perspective. However, photovoltaic providers can only hold their ground on the market by offering high-quality, clearly classified products. Optical quality controls during photovoltaic production are therefore critical to sustainable success in this highly competitive market.
Benchmark tests examined the technical performance, reliability, and reproducibility of the automated inspections offered by various European and Asian suppliers. The results speak for themselves – VINSPECsolar inspections systems were ahead of competitors. The VITRONIC solutions impressed the testers by offering maximum detection reliability with a clearly increased yield.
Even before the turn of the year, the impressive performance led to an upturn in the sales figures in this area. In the last six months, several dozen systems have been purchased to equip new solar cell production lines as well as to retrofit existing lines. These inspection systems are not only used to classify the finished solar cells but are also seamlessly integrated for several inspection tasks – following the cell texturing, coating, and electroplating stages.
