How to be 25% more efficient in quality control by implementing artificial intelligence
Submitted by Dominique Jobin, business development manager, Vooban
Patates Dolbec is the largest potato producer in eastern Canada. The company cultivates nearly 10,000 acres of land in the Portneuf region and has vertically integrated itself over the years.
The Saint-Ulbade company markets to retailers such as Costco, Metro, and Sobeys, as well as distributors like Cage aux Sports, for example.
Today, Patates Dolbec cultivates, transforms and packages a wide variety of potatoes destined for the North American market.
Patates Dolbec had a problem with potato sorting in its factories, which required extensive manpower.
Potatoes can exhibit many types of imperfections, with some becoming green because of sun exposure in the field, or others exhibiting black spot, which is caused by fungi, and more.
In all, Patates Dolbec identified 25 types of defects to consider, as well as size, with some customers wanting small potatoes and others preferring medium or large spuds.
Through the labor-intensive task of manually sorting potatoes, workers were accidentally removing healthy potatoes or missing those that had defects.
