The effect of visual search strategy and overlays on visual inspection of castings

In the domain of inspecting particularly the casting industry there is currently a great deal of subjectivity in the visual inspection of castings. This subjectivity results in high rates of miss and false alarm outcomes among workers inspecting castings. These events lead to costly rework and end user rejection of product. Due to this, there is much interest in improving the inspection methods to detect anomalies. This research involves using various methods including search pattern training, as well as visual overlays, to augment the way inspectors inspect the casting. This is then compared to a control group. The results show the experimental groups that received search pattern training were superior to the standard training/control group. However, the group that utilizes an overlay was not superior to the control group despite the similar raster training, indicating the overlay methods used is distracting to the user.