March 2022 Metrology News Magazine
Editors Message:
Has it really been two years?
As we pass the second anniversary of the world shutting down travel, and government-imposed draconian restrictions on citizens, we can finally dust off our passports, and with vaccination certificate in hand, leave the home-office desk and start our travels to international events. Have we remembered how to converse in public, network in groups, and will the suit still fit! This and much more is in front of us as we get ready with excitement to visit a number of upcoming exhibitions in the UK, Europe, and USA over coming months to report on the latest technologies, and industry trends, that will shape the future of advanced manufacturing. Having just had a COVID infection ‘top-up’ of immunity I should be good to go. Watch this space!
This month the editorial focus of Metrology News has been Coordinate Measuring Machines. Despite all that has changed in manufacturing over the past three-plus decades the CMM continues on in its critical role of policing the quality of precision manufacturing operations. Optical metrology solutions have dynamically arrived on the scene over the past decade, and have penetrated much of the prototype manufacturing process and the wider tolerance manufacturing operations such as automotive sheet-metal and molded plastics, however, the world of precision manufacturing remains the domain of the CMM. It continues to see off all challengers and in a recent study the global stationary CMM market is estimated to continue to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 4.8%. The report highlighted that CMMs, equipped with scanners or multi-sensor systems, will gain prominence with the growing adoption of Industry 4.0 across manufacturing.
Searching Linkedin for ‘CMM Programmer’ and ‘CMM Operator’ returns a list of tens of thousands of professionals supporting the day-to-day operation of Coordinate Measuring Machines in manufacturing industries globally and demonstrating just how universally adopted the CMM has become across all facets of precision manufacturing.
Published CMM articles this month asked “How is The CMM Adapting To Support Smart Manufacturing” and also looked at new CMM structures in “Shaping The Future Of Coordinate Measuring Machines”. With the trend of positioning measurement ever closer to production processes the need to relocate CMM measurement out of the measurement laboratory is gathering pace. Smart Manufacturing relies on the ability to capture measured data and dynamically utilize the generated data to control manufacturing processes. Automation will play a significant role in ensuring the data collection process is seamless and with minimum latency.
This month also saw further company acquisition announcements with machine vision and inline inspection being specifically targeted. We also reported on the announcement that, with the new F1 season upon us, that teams will be kept ‘honest’ this year with scrutineering using portable 3D industrial metrology equipment to ‘CAD-Compare’ F1 cars during race weekends. Racing 4.0!
Over 80 articles were published in March with the magazine below offering a selection of published stories including ‘Digitally Integrated Surface Finish and CMM Measurements’; ‘Multisensor CMM Measures Complex Geometry In Single Setup’; ‘Moving Into Quality 4.0 with Off-line CMM Programming’; ‘Are Machinists & Inspectors Truly Measuring Size Correctly?’; ‘Production Personnel Perform In-Process Measurement Routines’. The complete library of March articles can be accessed by clicking here.
As usual I welcome your comments, news and views along with guest articles – my inbox is always open and hope to ‘bump into’ many of you at one of the upcoming events.
Keith Mills – Publishing Editor
Shaping The Future Of Coordinate Measuring Machines
The Coordinate Measuring Machine (CMM) has been around in its current bridge configuration form for over 35 years. While speed and accuracies have improved over the decades the basic footprint has remained unchanged. The bridge CMM is something of a ‘space hog’ with its ‘X-Y’ measuring volume being only some … read more
Solution Puts Measurement Directly On CNC Machine Tools
Hexagon’s Manufacturing Intelligence division has announced the release of HxGN NC Server, a new machine tool software interface that allows users to work with leading measurement software PC-DMIS directly on machine tools. The solution brings a range of productivity benefits by making the established process of machine tool measurement more accessible and compatible with other data collection and analysis processes commonly used … read more
How The CMM Is Adapting To Support Smart Manufacturing
The Coordinate Measuring Machine (CMM) has been the centerpiece of most manufacturing company quality control departments for more than 35 years. While the world has dramatically changed over the past three decades with the invention of portable computing, smartphones, the world wide web, wireless communications, etc developments in the CMM … read more
Digitally Integrated Surface Finish and CMM Measurements
At its Steyr site, ZF uses mobile surface measuring instruments from ACCRETECH’s HANDYSURF+ series for first part approval in metrology – Data is logged in the ZEISS Calypso metrology software together with dimensional measurement data of the components taken from ZEISS coordinate measuring machines. This End-to-end digital solution ensures … read more
Multisensor CMM Measures Complex Geometry In Single Setup
To maximize efficiency and reduce fuel consumption, current combustor exit temperatures exceed the melting point temperatures of turbine blade materials. The external surfaces of the blades are protected by film cooling, a process in which cool air from the compressor is discharged via small holes in the turbine blade … read more
Moving Into Quality 4.0 with Off-line CMM Programming
Powerful and intuitive, Metrologic Group’s Silma X4 software is an off-line programming tool that allows manufacturing organizations to enter into the Industry 4.0 era due to different advanced Coordinate measuring machine (CMM) simulation modules. Perfect for volume production, especially in automotive and aerospace industries … read more
Are Machinists & Inspectors Truly Measuring Size Correctly?
Do you have machinsts that feel they produce holes in parts correctly to engineering requirements but the inspectors provides feedback to the machinist, in the form of a reject tag, that the part does not conform? Is it possible they’re making completely different measurements and providing completely different results … read more
Production Personnel Perform In-Process Measurement Routines
Gibbs Gears produce high-precision gears, shafts, and machined components for the UK, and increasingly, for worldwide markets. A family owned business for over 60 years, the company’s in-house expertise and impressive plant list allows it to serve customers involved in some of the world’s most demanding sectors, including the aerospace … read more
Optical Measuring Machine Delivers Breakthrough Inspection Accuracy
Keyence has further extended its portfolio of precision measurement technologies with a new, high-accuracy optical dimension measurement system. Boasting accuracy to ±0.7μm, the LM Series combines the ease of use associated with the Keyence range with the breakthrough precision demanded across an ever broader range of applications … read more
Contract Manufacturer Expands Capacity With Large Volume CMM
Engineering company Park Engineering has significantly increased the size of parts it can machine and subsequently measure on a coordinate measuring machine (CMM). It follows the installation at the start of 2022 of two new machines, a Spanish-built Correa Fox 50 5-axis machining center having … read more
Disused CMM Converted Into 3D Nano Optical Profilometer
As the age of Industry 4.0 is upon us demands increase on advanced manufacturing processes and highly accurate production techniques. Regarding the requirements of surface quality in production, optical inspection is the most general way to detect a component surface quality by measuring the roughness, micro-profile and other related parameters … read more
Quality Assurance of Micro Gears with Optical CMM
Noise and vibration reduction of dental instruments is one of the joint goals of the wbk Institute of Production Science at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) together with the world-renowned manufacturer of dental products and technology, Dentsply Sirona. In the ProIQ project, approaches for function-oriented quality assurance of micro … read more
The Future of 3D Scanning – An Expert Opinion
Metrology News recently sat down with Dean Solberg, Vice President-Metrology, at Exact Metrology, for a discussion on the future role of portable 3D scanning and its role in smart manufacturing. Exact Metrology offers contract measurement & scanning services, metrology equipment solutions including hardware and software rentals … read more
3D Scan and CAD Comparisons of large Castings
The core business of Duisburger Modellfabrik GmbH is the production of large foundry patterns made of wood, plastic block materials and foam for the manufacture of steam and gas turbines, engine beds, diesel engines and components for wind turbines in steel, gray or nodular iron castings … read more
In-line Measuring Platform Creates Digital Twin
Brake discs are among the safety-relevant components in a vehicle and must withstand several million braking operations without damage. For this reason, EV car manufacturers must ensure that the components do not have any defects, such as cracks in the material, and should be within tight dimensional specifications when they … read more
Quality of Iron Castings Guarantees By X-Ray Inspection
Since December 2020, MRB Guss GmbH Herzogenburg near Vienna has been assuring the quality of its iron castings with the ZEISS BOSELLO MAX 450kV machine. It’s an investment that’s paying off. With this device, the company is able to guarantee the quality of the iron castings not only faster … read more
Look, But Don’t Touch – CT Inspection of EV Batteries
In the following article Dr. Tobias Neubrand, Technical Director for Electronics Inspection at Waygate Technologies, a Baker Hughes business and world leader in industrial inspection solutions, explains how advanced industrial radiography and computed tomography (CT) systems are revolutionizing non-destructive battery inspection … read more
High-Precision Vision System for EV Battery Inspection
SICK has expanded its portfolio of solutions for automotive manufacturing with a purpose-designed machine vision system for inspecting high-voltage batteries during assembly of electric vehicles. An ‘out-of-the-box’ solution with all necessary hardware and its own dedicated software, it enables easy configuration of Ranger3 high-definition camera … read more
The Standards Of Digital Transformation – KPIs Of Digital Manufacturing
Digital Transformation (DT) has been breaking the limits of what we have known as long-standing manufacturing standards. Change of this magnitude requires a fitting set of criteria that accurately defines the meaning of success. This article features some of the top key performance indicators (KPIs) of digital manufacturing … read more
Smart Factory – Measurement Technology Controls Production
Industrial metrology, previously mainly dealt with in quality assurance areas, will play a very central role in the production of the future. Therefore, the goal of the metrology specialists are closed feedback loops. Dr. Ing. Kai-Udo Modrich, Managing Director of Carl Zeiss Automated Inspection, is convinced that “measurement technology will control … read more
BMW Publishes Largest Open-Source Dataset For Production AI Applications
The BMW Group is publishing the world’s largest data set to streamline and significantly accelerate the training of artificial intelligence in production. The synthesized AI dataset – known as SORDI (Synthetic Object Recognition Dataset for Industries) – consists of more than 800,000 photorealistic images. These are divided into 80 categories … read more
Sensofar Launch New Line of Optical Sensor Heads For Automation Integration
Sensofar Metrology, with over 20 years’ experience in developing optical surface metrology systems, has launched a new four-sensor heads line which allow integration into manufacturing solutions. Growing customer interest in integrating surface metrology equipment into inspection and manufacturing machines, has inspired Sensofar to create the new line … read more
SLM Launch Digital AM Quality Assurance Solution
SLM Solutions has announced the launch of SLM.Quality. The QA software solution will enable customers to perform build job evaluations and process qualifications and part certifications more efficiently. Whether it’s for single part or series production, the SLM.Quality solution can support industrial customers during the qualification process … read more
F1 Scrutineering Check Car Geometry Using 3D Scanning
For the 2022 season, the manner in which the legality of F1 cars is checked is changing, and the FIA is implementing a new laser scanning system that will form part of the scrutineering process at every race weekend. FIA Single Seater Technical Director Nikolas Tombazis explained in an interview how the process … read more
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