“Hunting” for “shadow workers”

Remember weighing in motion

Google against fakes

Wood sawdust printing

Veneer quality is monitored using neural networks

Everything that happened last week in Ukraine and the world and is relevant for the furniture maker, read in our digest:

1. Soon in Ukraine, mass inspections of enterprises will begin to identify “shadow workers”. The inspection will be organized by several state institutions at once: the Ministry of Economic Development, the State Tax Service, and the State Labor Service.

The start of the inspection period is scheduled for July 1. During the inspection, thousands of Ukrainian companies will be checked. Employers who knowingly use undeclared labour and do not pay taxes to the state for their employees will be severely punished. According to preliminary data, the fine for one illegal employee will be up to 180,000 UAH.

2. Furniture makers who transport their products to a greater extent by so-called trucks should be aware that the Ministry of Infrastructure has launched a program for the automated calculation of fines for violation of road carriers’ size and weight standards. The Ministry of Infrastructure emphasizes that while the message about the fine is for informational purposes only. As part of the preparation for the full launch of the automatic fines charging system, access to information on the violation of the size and weight norms by carriers, which record the “weighing in motion” complexes (WIM-stations), has been opened.

3. Google has begun testing a new feature that will report unverified information in search results. The innovation will affect news content, which will be checked and analyzed for veracity. Suspicious material will not be removed from search results, but the user will be able to take additional steps to study the issue after the warning. This is especially important when important business decisions have to be made.

However, it is not yet clear how this innovation will work. For example, which sources “Google” will consider being reliable for a particular search query, and how many “trusted” sources must give their opinion before the primary source loses its unverified status. 

4. The American company “Desktop Meta”, specializing in the development and sale of 3D printing systems, introduced the Forust system, which prints volumetric components and products from sawdust. Products, printed with sawdust on a new American-made printer, are not inferior in appearance and structure to things made of natural wood.

The technology of this unit is similar to that of a traditional inkjet printer: the system scatters the bonding agent onto the sawdust layer. The layers “grow” and stick together to form a durable material. The final product lends itself easily to any kind of finishing (grinding, painting).

5. In the production of large-format plywood, the method of glueing veneer pieces into one large sheet is used. It happens that in automatic mode, high-quality veneer sheets are spliced ​​with defective ones, which leads to a shortage of finished plywood.

To solve the problem, scientists suggested using a machine vision system based on neural networks. High-precision “smart” cameras were installed on the splice line. If a defective veneer gets on the line, the camera sends a signal to the machine, and it sorts the problem sheet into a separate pocket. The system also checks the quality of the glue application.

More than 5,000 veneer photos were taken specifically for this and all possible types of defects were noted on them to make the control system perfect.