Physical poka-yoke mechanisms such as limit switches or color-coding help workers avoid errors in "real-time", yet they have limited applicability and their coverage becomes even shallower when multiple configurations are coming down the same line. Pathfinder is a versatile solution that intervenes to prevent a much larger variety of potential mistakes, and doesn't require re-designing a process to apply.

Visual part inspection systems focus on Quality Control stations, which are generally found at the end of the assembly line. Our customers find that by then it is too late: workers have already made their mistakes, and the product either needs to be disassembled and fixed or be discarded, which are both costly options. In fact, some steps in correct assembly cannot be captured by looking at the final product at all and thus it becomes important to check at the source if the worker missed a step or performed a step incorrectly. In contrast, Pathfinder enables continuous quality checks while workers are performing manual assembly.

Some vendors sell offline human activity understanding to provide "descriptive" analytics of workstation processes. We differentiate ourselves from them in three ways:

1. Real-time Guidance versus Offline Analytics: We provide live task guidance and immediate worker feedback, directly adding value by conveniently mistake-proofing customers' processes as opposed to competitors' after-the-fact analytics solution.

2. Rapid Onboarding: We give a visual querying tool to industrial engineers allowing them to build QA experiences within 4-6 hours as opposed to 4-6 weeks that competitors take.

3. Prescriptive analytics versus Descriptive Analytics: Competing solutions "describe" what industrial engineers have already observed on the line. In contrast, our solution understands the 3D scene and canonical human action to retrieve, refine, and recommend processes improvement ideas i.e. action items for industrial engineers.

DWI is one of several platforms providing "interactive PowerPoint" capabilities that allow industrial engineers to rapidly convert paper-based work instructions to digital work instructions. It may sometimes be possible to integrate machine vision based part defect detection into such solutions as well.

1. Throughput Reduction: DWI requires operators to place a part being assembled under a camera, then press a button on the screen to scan the part, and get permission from the system to move to the next step, and do so at every step of the process. This slows down the line.

2. Change in operator behavior: The hardest part of digitization in manufacturing is changing human behavior. We find that operators get annoyed when they must meet a daily quota and are being held back by the machine; and make attempts at bypassing the process altogether. In contrast, our solution proactively observes the worker and product and interrupts only when necessary.

3. Redesign of Assembly process: DWI requires a complete redesign of the assembly process with DWI software at its center needing manual data entry or even QR codes on products. Our solution adapts naturally to existing processes.