Greg Mann doesn’t want to brag. Although he’s proud of the company’s work, he isn’t satisfied. “We’re just getting started,” says Mann, the operations manager at Accurate Gauge & Manufacturing (Rochester Hills, MI).
Despite regulatory challenges, many U.S.-based companies and research labs are forging ahead with hybrid materials for 3D printed medical implants that could revolutionize healthcare.
The process of reverse engineering using 3D scanning can yield many outputs and there is certainly some confusion between them. I hope this brief explanation of options can help set you down the correct path for your needs.
Greg Mann doesn’t want to brag. Although he’s proud of the company’s work, he isn’t satisfied. “We’re just getting started,” says Mann, the operations manager at Accurate Gauge & Manufacturing (Rochester Hills, MI).
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.
Whether you’re talking about measurement checks in the quality room or a quick, accurate check on the shop floor, height gages remain one of the most useful tools in metrology today.
I offered some comments that relate to gaging problems in the last column but thought it would be worth giving measuring instruments the same treatment.
A revolution has occurred. Those with a view of major developed economies over the last roughly twenty years say it happened “quietly,” as the businesses of these economies began investing more in intangible assets—such as design, branding, research and development, and software—than in tangible assets, like machinery, buildings, and computers.
Despite best efforts, auditors find things. It is their job. Why wait until audit day to uncover problems? In the words of Walt Disney, “The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.”
Multi-vari and pre-control charts in our final Shainin column.
March 1, 2018
Multi-vari charts are a useful tool for presenting analysis of variance data in graphical form. They can identify patterns of variation, on a single chart, from many causes.
You diligently worked up the proposal. You were conservative in estimating material and labor, and you won the job. What could possibly go wrong? Twenty weeks later, a profit and loss report, dripping in red ink, lands on your desk, and your boss wants to see you in his office. Where did the profits go?
In the dark ages before the prevalence of LED lighting choices, shop floors had to rely on consumer lighting options, like fluorescent and incandescent bulbs, or later, through xenon bulbs concentrated through fiber optics, according to Bradley Weber, Datalogic’s application engineering leader and industry product specialist for manufacturing.
Advancements in laser measurement technology and the adoption of IO-Link communication are making complex inspections easier, more reliable, and more cost-effective.
Fast, reliable error-proofing is essential to ensuring consistent throughput without sacrificing quality. Manual quality inspections are often tedious and prone to error, and complicated vision systems can be expensive and time-consuming to implement.
JAI announced the addition of a new high-speed trilinear color line scan camera to its Sweep Series camera family. The new SW-4000TL-PMCL features a custom CMOS trilinear imager with 4K (4096 pixels) resolution and a maximum full line rate of 66 kHz for 24-bit non-interpolated RGB output.
Creaform has launched the R-Series Productivity Station and the R-Series Autocalibration Kit. Both are key upgrades to its robotic metrology dimensional measurement solution, which offers an efficient alternative to traditional shop-floor CMMs.
In the early 2000 era, companies were happy just to have a website. Then the emergence of cloud-based applications driven by web browser technologies brought about SAAS (software as a service), and the business environment underwent a paradigm shift toward digital infrastructure—one that could improve production and increase profit.
USB is the most prevalent method to connect computers and peripheral devices. Taking a survey of my desk there are a multitude of devices—a smartphone, headphones, a camera, mouse and keyboard—that rely on a USB connection.
Thanks in large part to its ease of use, USB dominates consumer-to-computer connectivity applications and is being rapidly adopted across other markets.
Teledyne DALSA introduced its newest Genie Nano cameras built around ON Semiconductor’s Python P3 1.3M CMOS image sensors. These new models feature a global shutter, with 1280 x 1024 resolution, and image capture of up to 83 frames-per-second with Teledyne’s TurboDrive technology.
Banner Engineering announced the release of WLS27 Multicolor LED Strip Lights with EZ-STATUS™ that perform both illumination and indication functions for machines and workstations.
Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence announced the latest evolution of its Global S coordinate measuring machine (CMM) series, customizable for specific inspection work and changing manufacturing objectives.
LMI Technologies (LMI) announced the official launch of the Gocator 200 Series of modular multi-point scanners, the latest addition to the Gocator line of smart, all-in-one 3D sensors for material optimization and 100% quality control.
ATI Industrial Automation’s new U1-050 Universal Compliance Compensator combines a variety of features to achieve the highest level of adaptability in tasks such as automated assembly, bin picking, loading and unloading machines, robotic finishing, and more.
Industrial QA/QC technicians, instructors and university researchers seeking robust UV-Visible spectrophotometers that are accessible, automated and network-ready can now choose from a flexible range of options with the newly designed Thermo Scientific GENESYS UV-Vis spectrophotometer family.
Mitutoyo America Corporation announced the release of the latest Rockwell Hardness Testers in its HR-530 Series, including the HR-530 (maximum specimen size height: 250 mm; depth: 150 mm) and the HR-530L (maximum specimen size height: 395 mm; depth 150 mm).