BMW Visual Inspector

BMW Visual Inspector

The Visual Inspector (VI) is a camera-based system that can be used to monitor for the correct installation of a part during assembly. It is intended to operate after an assembly location, inspecting each car as it travels through the location. It can obtain the vehicle identification number (VIN) of the car it is inspecting and use the VIN to look up information about the car options in the BMW database. It can use that information to compare its test result in order to determine when a manufacturing defect has been detected. The test result can be displayed on a monitor and/or used to light up a beacon and/or play an alarm sound through a speaker to notify a human inspector about the detected defect. The human inspector remains ultimately in charge of the inspection process. The goal of the VI is to reduce the tedium of the inspection process and thereby reduce the burden and improve the performance of the human inspector.


The VI was specifically developed for the BMW Spartanburg plant. However, it can be applied in other facilities and for other manufacturing problems. If an inspection problem is binary (determining only the presence/absence of a part), then no database access is required and the VI can be applied anywhere. With minimal changes to the details of interfacing with the BMW database, the VI can be deployed in any BMW manufacturing facility. The system could also potentially be deployed at non-BMW facilities with some custom support.