It is generally agreed that engineering is about tradeoffs, and that has always been particularly true in regard to measurement machines. There are several types of measurement, and higher performance in one area generally meant less capability, or none, in other areas.
Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence announced improvements to the operating temperature range of its TIGO SF shop-floor coordinate measurement machine (CMM).
Today’s on-the-go-consumers demand products that can multitask, from portable meal kits and one-minute makeup to smartphones that can measure your heartbeat or control your thermostat.
In the quality world, air gaging ranks with micrometers, calipers, comparators, scales, CMMs and many other instruments in that they are all considered measurement and test equipment (M&TE).
While CT may have been niche technology in the past, today it is helping manufacturers all over the world solve difficult R&D, quality and production problems.
In the survey, coordinate measurement machines remains a bedrock of the quality field, with 22% of respondents saying they planned to increase spending on the technology.
It’s easy to take many of today’s technological marvels for granted, 3D measurement among them. The idea of simply pointing a “ray gun” of sorts at an object and obtaining all of its geometrical measurements would once have been solely the domain of Star Trek-ian science fiction.
Walking the floor of the International Manufacturing Technology Show in Chicago—between the 100,000-plus attendees and the thousands of booths—it was impossible not to notice the ongoing trend towards speed and automation in every aspect of manufacturing. It’s no different in metrology, as more manufacturers look to automate their inspection processes.