Quality inspection used to be a disparate process isolated in a lab. Today it is much more integrated with the production floor through in-process inspection and open CAD-based measurement software.
You hear a lot about Geometric Dimensioning & Tolerancing (GD&T) today, but less about its practical deployment and utilization in the manufacturing and inspection process. To better understand and appreciate the importance of GD&T data one must embrace the idea of Model-Based Definition (MBD), which gives the annotated data relevance in the design, build and quality-verification processes.
MBD came out of the verifiable, close tolerance world of aerospace manufacturing, which challenged us and other metrology companies to provide a practical means to inspect and report part quality across an ever-increasing supply chain. Before the globalization of aircraft manufacturing, OEMs made most of the components they used, but as multi-tier supply chains emerged so did the need to reduce time-to-market, improve quality and effectively communicate and manage design intent of every part produced.