Manufacturing Metrology Specialist Celebrates 20 Years Since ‘Eureka Moment’
2022 marks an exciting milestone for manufacturing metrology specialist MSP as the company celebrates 20 years in business. Over the past two decades, MSP has contributed to the advancement of the CNC manufacturing industry through the creation of its innovative metrology and automation tools.
MSP was founded in 2002 by Tony Brown, MSP’s Commercial Director, and Peter Hammond, Technical Director, who retired in 2021. During their previous careers in software development and mechanical engineering, both had witnessed engineers struggling to fix part errors that were being identified during final inspection – when it was too late to correct the issue. They recognised that these part errors were being introduced by either the machine or the part setup process.
As Tony explains: “This was the ‘Eureka!’ moment that spurred the invention of MSP. Why were manufacturers struggling to create good parts, when the errors causing the problems could be removed? The risk of them having a detrimental effect on finished parts would be eliminated”.
Since this moment, it has been MSP’s mission to remove all errors from the part production process so manufacturers can have the confidence they will produce right-first-time parts, every time.
MSP’s journey started with writing software for Renishaw, helping to create UCCserver, which launched in 2003. After this success, MSP’s expertise was called up again by the metrology company and the two companies jointly created Renishaw’s Equator. This relationship was cemented in 2005 when MSP became a Renishaw Associate company. MSP continues to develop and maintain both products to help Renishaw’s customers drive their CMMs and Equators in the most effective way possible.
As MSP continued to grow, the founders focused on achieving their goal of removing errors from part production processes on CNC 5-axis machine tools. Their first commission outside of Renishaw was for BAE Systems on their Eurofighter Typhoon programme. To help BAE with long part setup times, a high scrap rate and an underwhelming production rate, MSP developed NC-Checker and NC-PartLocator.
These products were released to the wider manufacturing industry in 2009, with the capacity to remove errors on a CNC 5-axis machine tool and remove errors from the part alignment process.
In 2021, MSP took this innovation further, with the invention of AutoClock – the first product on the market to automate the probe setup and calibration process and remove errors from this first stage of the CNC machining process.
By removing errors from every stage of the part production process, the company has enabled manufacturers across multiple industries, including aerospace, defence, motorsport and marine, to produce right-first-time parts and improve accuracy and automation across their machine shop floor.
Tony proudly comments: “When we first created MSP, we wouldn’t have believed that our products would be capable of saving BAE Systems £21 million over the lifetime of the F-35 programme or saving a top F1 team 9.5 hours in part setup time on every part made. I’m proud of everything we’ve achieved and would like to thank the team, past and present, that’s got us this far and continue to help us with our mission of removing errors from CNC machining processes”.
The company, who has 6 offices in the North East, continue to innovate and currently have a number of new products in development with the hope to further evolve the manufacturing industry towards completely error-free 5-axis machining.
For more information: www.mspltd.com
