Within the past five years, vision measurement has become a radically different animal in terms of capabilities and ease of use. The transformation began with the advent of computer-aided design (CAD)-based programming, which made the application of vision measurement analogous to other types of measuring technologies.

ADAT is currently using statistical software from Minitab to analyze its statistical process data. But during a major Six Sigma deployment in 2009, with more than 200 newly trained Green Belts poised to begin work on quality improvement, ADAT began looking for tools that would make the company’s projects easier.

Ogihara America Corp. is a U.S.-based Tier 1 supplier to the automotive industry. Its production facilities provide critical parts and assemblies to General Motors, Ford and Chrysler, as well as to several Japanese companies.

Students at Worcester Polytechnic Institute have been measuring the surface of a highly abrasive material to create a kind of topographic map. The work, being undertaken at the Department of Mechanical Engineering’s surface metrology laboratory, is part of an effort to develop the deepest understanding yet of how abrasive materials work.

With sales of more than $1.3 billion, Hexcel (Stamford, CT) is an advanced structural materials company and a global enterprise with 17 manufacturing sites in Europe, the United States and China.

In modern manufacturing plants, people still seldom attach importance to hypothesis testing, which they believe is merely a matter of theory. However, the application of hypothesis testing in quality management should be promoted.

First Technology Safety Systems Inc. (FTSS, Plymouth, MI), maker of crash test dummies and computer crash simulation models for automotive, military and aerospace applications, uses the HandHeld laser scanner from NVision Inc. (Coppell, TX) to ensure the accuracy of its crash dummies.

Trident Industrial Inkjet, manufacturer of industrial inkjet print head technology, has chosen the JetXpert system from ImageXpert (Nashua, NH) for accurate and repeatable in-flight droplet analysis.

Born July 15, 1848, Vilfredo Pareto was an Italian economist, theorist and sociologist. Pareto is chiefly known for his influential theory of ruling elites. Also, he is generally credited as the father of a diagnostic tool used by all who apply the very rudiments of quality analysis.

During his recent presentation at the 2009 Quality Measurement Conference, Ted Doiron of NIST called gage blocks, “a zombie technology.” He defined this as, “a dead technology given a semblance of life, but awkward and inefficient, by a supernatural force (human inertia) usually with evil (costly) effects.”