How well would your business perform if you had to always rely on manual applications, reviews and inspections? With the rise of automated technology, businesses have been able to grow at incredible rates while maintaining high standards of efficiency and most importantly safety.

This has naturally catapulted the thermal imagery industry forward and what we are now able to offer our clients. We’ve seen thermal technology able to completely transform the way that businesses work and operate on the day to day, therefore in most cases, increase their bottom line substantially. While some business owners might still be hesitant to make the big ‘leap’ into automation and thermal imagery, we’ve found that the ones that have made the investment early on are now starting to reap the benefits and become the market leaders in the field due to the enormous amounts of benefits it has been able to provide them to advance.

What are the main benefits to investing in thermal cameras which allow for automated applications and inspections to occur?

Automated Inspections

Those who are able to automate various functions of their business benefit from huge increases in both productivity and efficiency. Performing less menial tasks throughout their day, many business owners have reported that the introduction of good automatic monitoring systems and thermal cameras have improved both the quality and continuity of their business and its services.

Instead of waiting for the ‘monthly’ or ‘quarterly’ manual inspection to occur, instead you can recognise a potential problem immediately before the issue starts costing you more money or gets out of hand. Automated inspections completed by a thermal camera can save your business time in the long run. For example, steel mill ladles have limited life spans... they don’t last forever! But knowing when they are due replacing can often mean the difference between destroying the lives of workers and additional equipment in the process. While having a thermal camera on site can mean that you as the business owner are able to monitor your equipment in real time, plan ahead and avoid any potential breakdowns or dangers occuring.

More Data & Insights

More data and insight means that you can use real time information which can be used to get a true report and understanding of how your business operations are working and what can be done to improve them. For some businesses, they notice changes can happen throughout the year via their yearly overall reports, but they fail to have a great deal of understanding as to how much or whether their business conditions change month to month, day to day. Automated inspections via a thermal camera can help dramatically with this.

There have been many sites that we have worked with closely in order to achieve this, here are just a few examples below…

Nissan
The Nissan battery plant produces batteries for the Nissan leaf. For a manufacturing process like this to occur, temperature monitoring is critical, and for this they have elected to use the Flir A310 thermal camera in able to do this successfully. In addition, the manufacturing process has 32 A310 cameras utlising the IO ports which allows the cameras to talk or send and control the robots during the manufacturing process.

ABP Ports
One of the largest ports in the UK importing Biomass industry, ABP Ports use a FLIR A310 EX (explosion proof housing) so they can consistently measure the temperature of the product(s). From the time it leaves the ship and is stored in the dock side silos, therefore the cameras utilsing the IO ports can give audible as well as visual warnings of any critical temperature increase.

Process control

An efficient and safe form of process control is essential when working on any sort of production line. If you don’t have equipment like thermal cameras to ensure that shapes, sizes and temperatures are maintained then it can be difficult to ensure that your business can guarantee that requirements and specifications are always being meant.

Remove Risks

Many potential hazards or issues when they first start to appear are not detectable by the human eye. Therefore businesses that rely on more manual forms of process control and inspection could be putting their business at high levels of potential risk. Often the quicker you can respond the quicker you are able to prevent any hazards or problems escalating into something more serious and dangerous. (This is when thermal cameras come in).

Production lines, waste sites, heavy machinery, livestock, electrical, security ALL greatly benefit from the use of thermal imagery. For many, by not relying on this technology they would not be able to perform at their very best or at all!

Condition Monitoring

The food industry in particular products which include dairy would not be where it is today without the use of the automated monitoring and inspection via thermal cameras.

When dealing with dairy products and the good bacteria it contains, the constant monitoring of temperature is essential not only to ensure the taste of the product but also its safety for human consumption.

Thermal cameras can detect the potential signs of diseases which can be found in milk and young cows by looking out for abnormalities in the temperature of the animal or the after product. While a raised temperature doesn’t always mean ‘infection’ or ‘disease’ it can often indiciation a simple inflammation which the farmers can detect and treat appropriately to ensure the health of the animal is held to a high standard.