Declining prices and increasing returns on investment are accelerating machine vision's growth, reports Juan Rosales, research analyst with Frost & Sullivan. "Machine vision equipment was once considered to be an expensive luxury that could only be attainable by large companies with very high revenues. Only a decade ago, the average range for a complete vision system was approximately $40,000 to $60,000." Rosales says today's range is closer to $5,000 to $20,000.
"The recent trend has been moving toward OEMs of varying sizes factoring vision applications into their corporate budgets. More and more companies are realizing the wealth of benefits. Furthermore, machine vision equipment is often sold at discounted prices when purchased in bulk."
In addition, Rosales reports that implementations now typically take days instead of months.
