Case study

Pipe counting on conveyors

Counts pipes and tubes as they leave the line, lot by lot.

In daily use at a manufacturing plant, Thailand

The problem

Pipes and tubes are counted by eye as they come off the conveyor. When the count drifts, lots go out short or over-filled, and nobody finds out until the customer does.

How it works

01
Camera over the conveyor
02
Detect, track and count
03
Live count on the touch screen
04
Chime and stop the conveyor

1
One IP camera watches the conveyor.
2
A detector trained on the plant's own footage, with a tracker, runs on an on-site PC with an NVIDIA GPU and counts each piece that crosses a line in the picture.
3
A Thai touch-screen panel shows the live count against the lot target and chimes when a lot is full.
4
When a lot is full, or if the camera feed drops, it stops the conveyor through a relay wired to the line's existing START/STOP buttons.
5
Every count is recorded for daily reports and CSV export.
6
The plant's own buttons and emergency stop keep working as before.

Measured results

counted vs. true count: 92 / 91; 5½-minute reference recording, counted end to end by the production service.
per frame: 9.6 ms; Detection and tracking, on the same recording.
on one PC: 4 lines; 4 camera streams at about 13 frames per second each, at 35% GPU load.
runs fully on-site: Offline; No internet connection is needed to count.

What the operator sees

Start-order screen of a pipe counting system in dark theme: the operator picks a counting station and a product SKU, sets the number of lots and pieces per lot on a large on-screen keypad, and a summary panel shows the plan (3 lots × 250 pieces, 750 total) with a start button. — Screens shown with illustrative data. Camera views are blanked to protect the client's site.

Live count board with two counting stations side by side. Each tile has a camera area (shown here as a blank placeholder), the current lot count against its target with a progress bar, the order total, and controls to remove a piece, pause, close the lot or close the order. One station is highlighted as close to its lot target. — Screens shown with illustrative data. Camera views are blanked to protect the client's site.

What's needed on site

PoE IP camera and PoE switch
Windows PC with an NVIDIA GPU (one PC serves up to 4 lines)
Touch screen at the line
Network relay, for conveyor stop and start

Every system is trained on footage from your own site before it goes live.

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