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InnerVoice is a real-time, process monitoring hardware and software platform for manufacturing process health. InnerVoice combines data collection, signal processing, feature extraction, pattern recognition, and classification into a powerful, general purpose, data-driven process monitoring system that captures a unique digital fingerprint of the manufacturing process on a part-by-part basis and immediately alerts the manufacturer when novel or anomalous behavior is encountered.

See "Introducing InnerVoice" for more information, or contact us today to learn more about how InnerVoice can help your organization increase productivity.

Great question!  See "What is In-Process Monitoring?" for more information, or contact us today to learn more about how InnerVoice can help your organization increase productivity.

In-process monitoring, when properly implemented, can shift the present conformance and inspection mindset to a predictive approach that emphasizes fundamental process understanding. This new approach brings tangible and quantifiable benefits to manufacturing, including the following:

• Provides objective evidence that the process is consistently producing products complying with the predetermined design and development requirements.
• Characterizes the process based on what the part experienced and not just on machine tool knob settings.
• Enhances, complements, and extends the current manufacturing quality-assurance and quality-control paradigm by providing an in-process view of quality control.
• Offsets or replaces a manufacturer’s over-reliance on post-process, destructive and non-destructive testing.
• Reduces scrap and rework.
• Reduces the time to qualify a new piece of equipment or process.

In-process quality assurance is the in-process approach to manufacturing quality assurance that extends the traditional approach by including a verification stage and modifying the post-process inspection stage, thus resulting in the following activities: (1) control materials, (2) write specifications, (3) train operators, (4) maintain equipment, (5) set and control knob settings, (6) verify that the manufacturing process is repeatable by interrogating the real-time response, (7) reduce dependence on final inspection as the database of in-process signatures for "good" welds evolves and matures, and (8) perform metallurgical cutups only as necessary.

For more information, see our article: Eliminating the Blind Spot in a Traditional Approach to Manufacturing Quality Assurance.

InnerVoice is more than data collection.  While feedback that the machine delivered the desired setpoint parameters is important, InnerVoice expands upon this by capturing the process physics that directly impact the product's quality.

It depends on the customer's needs and the product's service requirements. For some manufacturers, InnerVoice provides an additional layer of product quality surveillance. This is particularly true for manufacturers of mission- or safety-critical components. For other manufacturers, InnerVoice can reduce the over-reliance on post-process destructive and non-destructive tests (NDT).  In particular, InnerVoice can help manufacturers create an "inspect-for-cause" quality assurance methodology, where only "suspect" components are inspected further by trained personnel.

InnerVoice was designed from the ground up to be a pluggable architecture. This design approach allows for a "process-agnostic" framework where one or more plug-ins provide a customized feature set that is specifically tailored to the customer's data, process, machine interface, and reporting needs. Essentially, there are two requirements: (1) the manufacturing process must be capable of instrumentation and (2) the measurements must capture process dynamics that are relevant to the process health and product quality. We are constantly expanding our process capabilities. Contact us for more information.

Yes! In addition to selling InnerVoice, we also offer data collection and data analysis services. We have worked with some of the largest and most reputable job shops, machine tool manufacturers, and process development companies in the world. Our clients receive an independent and unbiased third-party analysis of the weld development effort using the same advanced visualization and analysis tools that we build into InnerVoice.

For more information, see our article: Exploratory Data Analysis of Resistance Spot Welding for Small Lot Manufacturing.

No. InnerVoice collects, analyzes, and stores your manufacturing process data at the edge. This protects your data and ensures that your intellectual property never leaves the manufacturing plant floor.

Absolutely. InnerVoice can interface with both new and old machine tools to provide actionable part quality feedback.