“Cognex and the DataMan 100 were chosen because they offered a single vision solution that could read the Netflix disc hub barcode at any radial orientation and the reading of barcodes to determine the orientation of the Netflix sleeves.”
Based in California, USA, Netflix is the world’s leading internet subscription service for enjoying films and TV programmes. They also provide online ordering for DVD rental, dispatch and return by post, processing approximately two million DVDs per day. One of the company’s most expensive processes was the handling of DVD returns. Huge resources were tied up in manually opening mailers, taking out the sleeved discs, checking the titles on the DVDs against the sleeves, checking the discs for physical defects, cleaning them and scanning them into the system. Therefore, to improve production quality and reduce labour costs, Netflix asked several of the world’s leading automation companies to propose solutions for their customer returns process.
Bronway Automation, a specialist automation solutions provider based in County Wicklow, Ireland, was one of the two companies selected to build a prototype for the trial. They designed, developed and installed their ARRM3600 (Automated Rental Return Machine) prototype in a Netflix distribution hub in California and following an intensive trial period set within a live production environment, Bronway achieved superior performance results and were awarded the contract to supply 180 production units directly to 42 Netflix distribution centres across the USA.
Vision makes the difference
To undertake the necessary inspection and verification checks throughout the rental returns process, the ARRM unit utilises advanced DataMan® 100 code readers from Cognex to read barcodes on the envelope, sleeve and DVD disc, which is communicated to a central server to ensure complete traceability throughout the process. Each ARRM unit has nine DataMan 100 code readers positioned at various stations to undertake barcode reading and inspection tasks for 3,600 mailers per hour.
James Frost, General Manager at Bronway Automation commented, “Cognex and the DataMan 100 were chosen because they offered a single vision solution that could read the Netflix disc hub barcode at any radial orientation and the reading of barcodes to determine the orientation of the Netflix sleeves. No other supplier could offer a single unit to address both requirements. Following contract discussions with Cognex for the 1,620 DataMan units required we were satisfied that the DataMan 100 was the correct choice for Bronway, both technically and commercially.”
Paul Johnson, Director of Operations Support, Netflix Inc stated, “Since go-live, this project has exceeded our expectations in all areas. Having automation to check that the correct disc is in the right sleeve has had a measureable impact on our customer satisfaction. The reliability of the DataMan 100 has been excellent, and even when we did have an apparent issue with the readers (the root cause of which was actually with a USB hub) the speed with which Cognex sent an engineer to work alongside Bronway to quickly resolve the problem on-site really impressed me.”
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