Product traceability is an important consideration for catalytic substrate production operations. Many substrates are produced with identifying marks including 1-D and 2-D barcodes, allowing data produced during the manufacturing process to be traced back to individual pieces. Since CATPRO is an important data gathering instrument, the data that it produces in many cases must be stored in the event that questions arise about any piece that has been inspected.

The CATPRO system needs to have the capability to read barcodes on parts that are passing through the system. In some cases the barcodes are pre-existing, having been printed in a previous process. In other cases, the parts are entering the inspection system with no identifying marks, and a mark must be applied and verified.

The Side Camera inspection module is a highly capable barcode reader, which can read a barcode at any location on the side of a part. In this case, it is not required that the barcode be aligned in any particular way.

In some production lines the barcode is always aligned in a particular direction, perhaps because it is printed immediately upstream of the reading location. In these cases, a simple barcode scanner can be utilized to read the barcode without requiring the complexity and expense of a fully functional side inspection module.

It is also possible to configure multiple barcode readers in a “daisy chain” arrangement to coordinate the reading of a partially aligned or randomly aligned barcode without requiring that the part be rotated.