While a number of concerns must be addressed, many manufacturers have successfully moved coordinate measuring machines from the lab to the factory floor.
Ford Brazil recently integrated five of them onto its shop floor. Up north, in Michigan, GM Powertrain has eight of them that it uses to inspect cylinder blocks, heads and intake manifolds for automobile engines. DVD manufacturers have them, as does an aluminum extruder. And some companies have even designed them into systems for use in unattended, lights-out factory environments.
What is them? "Them" are coordinate measuring machines (CMMs) that have left behind the shackles of the metrology lab and found a home in the shop, near production, where they can best be used to conduct fast and accurate 3-D measurements of parts as they are made.