Machine vision and robotics demos: how to run a demo that leads to an order

The quality head watched the camera catch every scratch, nodded, and said it would be discussed internally. Two months later, nothing. That demo ran on parts the buyer's purchase team picked, against no agreed pass mark, and ended with "we will send a quotation". A vision or robotics demo leads to an order when it runs on the buyer's own parts, rejects included, against a pass mark both sides wrote down beforehand. It must also end with the next step agreed in the room, with a name and a date.

Ask for the reject bin, not only the good parts

Good parts prove one thing: that the system does not throw away good work. The order is decided on the defects. Ask the quality head for the defect library: several pieces of each defect the plant sees, plus the borderline pieces the inspectors argue about. Ask which defect the plant's own customer complained about last. That one must be in the demo.

A robot demo has its own version of this. Ask for parts as they reach the station on the line: loose in a crate, oily, stacked or tangled. A robot that picks beautifully from a fixtured tray may not pick at all from the plant's bin, and the buyer knows it.

Then ask about the conditions you cannot see. A phone video of the station, the line speed and where the light comes from tell you more than a drawing. Sunlight through roof sheets changes through the day. Dust and oil mist settle on lenses. If you cannot copy those conditions in your lab, say so, and plan a shroud or a site trial. For machines in general, our note on the demo, the visit and the reference call covers trials on the buyer's material; vision and robots add these problems on top.

Agree the pass mark before anyone travels

Send a one-page demo note to the quality and production heads and ask for a reply confirming it. Without one, the pass mark moves after the demo.

• Defects to be caught, listed by type, each piece numbered and kept apart
• Good pieces to run, and how many false rejects quality will accept on them
• Cycle time or line speed the station has to keep up with
• Part presentation copied from the line: crate, conveyor, tray or hanger
• Lighting and enclosure assumptions, written down
• People attending: quality for inspection, production for cycle time, maintenance for upkeep
• The decision the plant will take if the demo passes, and who takes it
• Limits you state openly, such as long-run drift, dust build-up or a product not yet made

On the day, run it blind

Mix the numbered defect pieces with good ones. Let the plant's own inspector feed them in and mark the sheet, while your engineer keeps hands off the parts. Nobody argues later with a result the plant recorded itself.

Let the plant's operator load the robot or the conveyor for part of the run. Show the operator screen, where a rejected part goes, and how a shift supervisor clears a fault. The maintenance head is watching for the day it stops, and will report that to the plant head.

The last fifteen minutes matter most

Do not pack up and promise a quotation. Sit down with the sheet and say something like this:

You: "On your inspector's sheet, the system caught the cracked heads and the short threads. It missed two of the faint seam marks. Is that where you expected it?"

Quality head: "The seams matter. Our customer rejected a lot for that."

You: "Then the seam question gets settled before anything is priced. We can come and measure your conveyor and your light, or run a paid trial on one station at your plant. Which suits you?"

You, once that is agreed: "Who else must see this result before the budget is set? Can we send it to them together by Friday?"

Write it all into an email that evening: the sheet, the agreed step, the names and the date.

Imagine a vision firm in Faridabad

Imagine a machine vision firm in Faridabad demonstrating crack and thread inspection for a fastener maker in Rohtak. The details are illustrative. For the first demo, the Rohtak purchase team sent fifty good bolts. The system passed all fifty. Then the quality head asked whether it would catch a crack under the bolt head, and there were no cracked bolts to show. The demo ended with a promise of a quotation, which went to purchase and was never answered.

The vision firm's sales head rang the quality head and asked for the reject bin, sorted by defect, then sent a demo note listing the defects, the good pieces, the line speed and who would attend. At the second demo the Rohtak inspector fed a mixed, numbered set and marked the sheet personally. Two faint seams were missed. The engineer lowered the lighting angle, re-ran those pieces with the inspector watching, and caught both, though the false-reject rate on good bolts rose slightly and had to be discussed. The second demo cost the firm a fortnight and a second trip. Before anyone left, both sides agreed a site visit to measure the conveyor and a budget figure for the plant head ahead of the capex meeting. The quotation that followed went to the plant head and the quality head by name.

When a demo is the wrong next step

If the buyer cannot name the defects to be caught, or nobody owns a budget, a demo is premature. Ask those two questions first. For a very new application, such as picking tangled springs from a bin, offer a paid feasibility study instead. A free demo of a hard problem can eat days of engineering for a buyer who is only curious.

Be honest when a camera is the wrong tool. A crack inside a casting cannot be seen from the surface, and saying so earns more trust than a demo that fails. For a standard application you have installed many times, a video from a running site and a reference call may be enough.

Turn your demo note into a template

Write your demo note as a template now, with blanks for defects, pass mark, cycle time and attendees, so the next serious enquiry gets it the same day. How an enquiry for an automation product reaches you in the first place is on the industrial automation and robotics page, and the moment a demo turns into a commitment is the work of negotiation and closing support. If you want help turning demos into orders, tell us what you need.