At Federal Eco Foam in Belgium, their mission is transformation. They take old, used foams from sources like discarded mattresses and skillfully recycle them into high-value products, including insulation materials and professional MMA mats.
But this complex recycling process came with a critical quality control challenge. A single, tiny piece of hidden plastic or metal could ruin a perfect product.
"When the knives of our machine come across this little piece," explains Mel Valkeneers, an Allround Operator at the facility, "it will drag the piece and create a line within the foam. Those lines will be seen in the end product. And that's what we don't want."
This "dreaded line" defect was a major pain point. The team needed a way to automatically detect and filter out these bad sheets, 100% of the time.
To solve this problem, Federal Eco Foam implemented the Hammer-IMS Edge-Vision-4.0, a powerful AI-driven surface detection system. The system was trained by showing it examples of good and bad foam sheets. Now, it operates with powerful autonomy. "We tell the system how sure it has to be that the sheet it detects is a bad sheet," Mel says. "For example, I say to the machine, 'I want you to be 80% sure it's a fault.' If it's 80% or more it will discard it. We can fine-tune our tolerance because the Hammer-IMS system, it sees everything."
The results, according to Mel, have been transformative. The process is not only more reliable but also incredibly simple to manage. "The machine works basically with only two buttons. We start, we finish," Mel notes. "When it comes across a bad sheet, it will automatically communicate with our machine and discard the bad sheet automatically." This automation led to a massive gain in efficiency.
"This used to be a two people job, and because of the machine, now it's only a one person job. And that one person can basically sleep! The system works very well." â Mel Valkeneers, Allround Operator, Federal Eco Foam
For the team at Federal Eco Foam, the Edge-Vision-4.0 has proven to be a reliable and effective solution that delivered on its promise. "That's why I would recommend it," Mel concludes. He also notes the strong support he received during implementation, "The service from Hammer-IMS was always on point. It was always just one phone call away. Very handy, very good."
His final thought says it all:
"I still have the numbers in my phone, but I don't need them anymore."
