About twenty years ago I was asked to make a presentation on calibration to a meeting of a local chapter of the National Conference of Standards Laboratories. 

In this application case study, we look at how a manufacturer of precision optical manufacturing and metrology equipment uses collaborative robots and a new robotic gripper/caliper to provide a solution that helps its customers optimize quality control measurements in the quality assurance area of their factory.

I’m a Type-A personality with a sense of urgency to explain everything. Give me a little data, and I will use every statistical tool I can wrap around these rationalizations to help explain an observation. But here is something that I cannot explain: why do we tolerate such poor gages?

The precision length calibration process is very much like any length measurement process, but taken to a significantly higher level. Both processes are composed of the same elements.

Machined parts commonly have sharp edges and corners that are “broken” for a variety of reasons in a process called edge break.

Today’s manufacturers are under pressure to be more flexible, reduce downtime and costs and increase efficiencies.

Erik Larson’s latest book begins with this quote. If you’ve ever read a book about a serial killer and the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893, the last crossing of the Lusitania, an American family in Hitler’s Berlin, the inventor of wireless and Britain’s second most famous murderer, or the 1900 Galveston Hurricane, you may be familiar with Erik Larson.

I was chatting with a colleague recently, a well-known supplier of precision measuring instruments. I noted, sarcastically, that his company was promoting a half-day training seminar on calibration and best of all—it was free! 

Thickness measurement is the gauging of coatings or films on surfaces—such as paint on metal parts. Manufacturers are increasingly using thinner and higher-performance coatings these days, with tighter applied thickness tolerances and an increasing need for more accurate and precise tools.