The researchers at IIT-Kharagpur (IIT-KGP) have developed a portable Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based device to perform an automatic inspection of goods produced by the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) sector. This innovation will help the MSME entrepreneurs have a more thorough inspection of the quality of goods produced thereby reducing losses that are incurred when entire batches of goods are rejected due to a few faulty samples found during manual checking.

"Our system can inspect each product in a batch at a low cost. Automation is one of the key aspects of digitalisation and also is the need of the hour," said Professor Suriya Pal, the research lead. She also heads the Centre of Excellence in Advanced Manufacturing Technology of IIT.

The portable device will take pictures of the finished products and send the data to the AI algorithm for inspection. The researchers, Professors Suriya K Pal and Debashish Chakravarty, technical staffer Pravanjan Nayak and intern Ayan Banerjee from Jalpaiguri Government Engineering College, have filed a patent for the system and soon will be available to MSMEs. 

The innovation is a boon to MSME sector as it will finally be able to harness industry-scale implementation of AI technology. The sector contributes to 30% of the country's GDP and 50% of export revenues. Overall, the MSME sector employs over 10 crore people in the country.