ImagingLab Srl:

a Brief Company Presentation

and some key company concepts

Ignazio E M Piacentini
ignazio.piacentini@imaginglab.it
www.imaginglab.it

Rivoli, Workshop @ Kuka, 20°May 2009


Who is ImagingLab?

The mission is in our logo

Our best ‘product’ is our
know-how

From consulting to complete
systems

Heavily focused on
integrated machine vision &
robotics (approx 50 robot-
vision installation over the
past 2 1/2 years)

Alliance Member of National
Instruments

@ Kuka, 20th may 2009 ImagingLab Company Presentation 2

Where are we?
 In Lodi, 30 km south of Milan, in an
historical building dating back from 1450
 Approx 400 sqm office and lab space

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 Who am I? Who are we?

 Ignazio Piacentini, 55 years old, M. Sc. from the Polytechnic of Central London
 A past in research working for the European Commission (Euratom: thermonuclear fusion, 1976-1991)
 Co-founder and president of Graftek Italia (Machine Vision)
 In 1996: Graftek France software machine vision library is acquired by National Instruments (Austin, Texas)
 From 1999 to 2003 hired by National Instruments Corporate as Machine Vision Business Developer
Manager for Europe
 In 2004 soft shut-down and restart in ImagingLab Srl
 Francesco Romanò, 30 years old,, Polytechnic of Milan, co-founder of
ImagingLab
 Gabriele Galeazzi, 35 years old, High School Diploma in Electronics
Engineering, Milan, co-founder of ImagingLab
 Simone Rocchi, 33 years old, Degree in Mechanical Engineering Uni of
Ancona, PhD Uni of Padova

 The full team today: 8 people (6 engineering, 2 admin / finance)

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 Turnover 2004-2008
 A small but very active company: start-up in April 2004
 From 200k€ to 1,2 k€ (double digit growth), from 3 to 8
people, in less than 5 years

1200
1000
800
600
400
200 Yearly turnover k€
0
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008

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ImagingLab: an integrator or a design bureau?
 ImagingLab does not build and deploy complete ‘machines’, but
works in close cooperation with other companies / partners with
machine production facilities (mechanics, electrics, pneumatics,
etc.)
 Our activities starts with a feasibility study all the way to a fully
working prototype
 Application sw is designed and developed mostly in-house
 Special attention is given to repetitive business in areas like
packaging and automated assembly
 Technology transfer and training is also part of our skills / services
to ensure the successful deployment of new technologies

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 Machine Vision and Robotics is a growing mkt
 We might be biased (90% of our
small company business is linked
to the tight integration of vision and
robotics), but there is a fast growing
presence of MV in the field of
robotics
 There are plenty of new areas
for robots, especially low
payload, high accuracy ones
 Today only 5-10 % of robotics
apps make use of MV, but these
number is destined to grow:
35% by 2012 ??
 The number of robots in Europe /
world is also increasing

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Italy: 'meccanica e macchine' :
the weight of Italy in Europe

 The weight of Italy in Europe: GDP (GEP?), manufacturing industry, ‘machines’

production
 Italy ranks at the 4th place, but machine manufacturing is 2nd after Germany
 Noi italiani siamo bravi a fare ‘macchine’

Weight of Italy in Europe

Other EU
Germany UK France Italy Spain members

% of Gross European Product 20.0% 16.4% 15.4% 12.8% 8.5% 26.9%

Manufacturing industry 26.0% 11.3% 15.1% 14.2% 7.5% 25.9%

Machine manufacturing 33.4% 9.4% 11.1% 19.5% 5.0% 21.6%

Source: Federmacchine / Eurostat

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Why and what is 'flexible manufacturing'?
1: market changes
 Market and economics changes have a
deep effect on engineering
 Production methods and requirements
have changed a lot in recent years:
 Smaller production lots
 Faster time to market
 Lowering production costs to respond to agressive new
competitors (China, India mkts)
 Flexibility vs production speed
 Cycle time: what does it really means?
 Design for speed
 Design for flexibility
 Design for ease of use
 Design for low cost of ownership

 Pictures courtesy of Automatismi Brazzale and Cabur

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 Why and what is 'flexible manufacturing'?
2: robotics
 Assembly machines need to be able to
produce different objects / products:
 At least in the same class of products
 No re-tooling required
 Fast production lot change with limited or no operator
intervention
 Used by non skilled personnel
 Reconfigurable / reusable for new products
 In-process quality control (as opposed to end-of-line
quality control)
 Flexible automated assembly:
 Loading / feeding components
 Putting the components together
 Flexible and reconfigurable ‘mechanics’
for handling and assembly
 Highly modular
 The answer is: more robotics

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Why and what is 'flexible manufacturing'?
3: machine vision
 The robots need to perform
more complex and ‘dynamic’
(i.e.) work cycles
 Robots need to see!
 Vision is used to:
 Locate the parts and send info to the
robot
 Perform quality inspection of single
components
 Verify assembly correctness
 In-process vs end of line quality
control:
 Discards only defective component
 Prevents machine malfunctioning /
jamming
 The answer is: more vision

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Why and what is 'flexible manufacturing'? 4:
better integrated software
 Machines need to be reconfigurable by the end user
 Vision and robotics sw needs to have simple user interface
 The integration of robotics and vision must take care of calibration
procedures, machine commissioning and start-up tools, etc
 The answer is: high level software libraries and tools specific to vision
and robotics integration

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LabVIEW: one platform for tight integration of
vision & robotics
 ImagingLab: a vision-centric view of robotics
 One single sw platform for all integration aspects: robotics, vision,
HMI, ….
 Reducing the cost and time to market of new applications

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 Any questions?

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