FEATURE ON METROLOGY

Blum hails change in measurement attitudes

A global measurement specialist is celebrating after enjoying its best ever appearance at last month’s Southern Manufacturing exhibition in Farnborough. Blum-Novotest says it took 12 strong enquiries on its stand after displaying the company’s new Digilog touch-probe systems. Managing director David Mold says that the firm witnessed a big turning point at the show, with potential customers exploring how they could validate parts while still on the machine: “This is exactly what our technology gives them, ensuring that every part they machine is a good part. In the past, we’ve had to convince visitors of the benefits of on-machine verification. This is no longer the case, which is helping us plan for our record year. In fact, with what we’ve got in the pipeline, I’m pretty certain we’ll secure 20% growth in 2018.

“The 12 leads we took at the show were all enquiries from companies with a real application and interest in how our technology can improve the way they manufacture,” he adds. “It summed up what was an excellent show and one that captured the current positivity surrounding UK industry.”
Blum-Novotest employs 534 people and turns over £77m across its 16 subsidiaries. The company says that it delivers solutions to some of the world’s largest aerospace primes, car manufacturers and a host of CNC machine tool suppliers, including the Engineering Technology Group, Whitehouse Machine Tools and YMT.
For further information www.blum-novotest.com

CMM passes medical at Meridian

Littlehampton-based Meridian Medical Ltd specialises in sterile and non-sterile medical device design, development and manufacture. Products are inspected to ensure quality and compliance to national and international standards. The company’s QA department, which remains completely independent of its production and design departments, sets standard QA/QC procedures relating to all company activities, including purchasing, production, assembly, packing and shipment. Meridian Medical’s highly developed quality culture can be illustrated by the recent purchase of an Axiom Too CMM from Aberlink.

Managing director James Fenton says: “Now fully operational, not only has our Aberlink CMM removed the potential for hold-ups in our QA department, but the machine’s CNC nature and its ability to perform rapid, automated inspection routines, means that it will be able to handle all anticipated future demands.”
Meridian Medical supplies disposable medical devices together with comprehensive sterilisation services and logistics. The company is registered to ISO9001, ISO13485 and FDA 21CFR 820, which ensure that quality and reliability are designed and built into every device produced.
Although Meridian has a range of specialised test and measurement equipment, increased volumes passing through its busy QA department prompted the company to search for a suitably accurate, universal dimensional measuring device that offered both ease of use and speed of operation.
“Our Axiom Too is now busy measuring first-off and last-off medical device components, along with undertaking work such as inspecting a given percentage of each manufactured batch, as dictated by our customers,” says Fenton. “As traceability is vital within the medical industry, it helps that the CMM is able to generate detailed reports relating to the critical dimensions of each inspected component.”
For further information www.aberlink.com

Speed and accuracy aids world record attempt

Having smashed the previous mark by 20 mph, Scunthorpe-based Becci Ellis set a world record of 264.1 mph on 17 August 2014 and became the world’s fastest woman on a conventional motorcycle over a standing-start mile. Achieving the female land-speed record also makes her the fourth fastest rider in the world, just 30 mph behind the overall world record set by late American rider Bill Warner.

Becci’s feat was performed at Elvington Airfield in North Yorkshire on a 1300 cc Suzuki Hayabusa that, when launched in 1999, won acclaim as the world’s fastest production motorcycle. In preparation for Becci’s record-breaking run, her Hayabusa was highly modified, enabling it to generate 650 bhp.
Not satisfied with being the current holder of the record, Becci is now busy preparing for a new attempt to set the benchmark even higher. In addition to multiple further modifications to the previously record-breaking Hayabusa, particular attention is now being paid to the aerodynamics of the bike.
Rather than use traditional wind tunnel testing methods to analyse and improve the bike’s aerodynamic performance, the team behind Becci’s latest record-breaking attempt are using advanced virtual simulation techniques.
To help gather the raw data needed to enable the best possible virtual simulation outcomes, the team enlisted the help of Manchester Metrology, a specialist in the field of laser scanning and data capture. Mindful of the need to acquire highly accurate data, the staff of Manchester Metrology used a Faro Edge ScanArm HD to undertake the critical scanning routines of the bike.
Philip Knowlson of Manchester Metrology says: “The Faro arm was ideal for this application as it has a scan rate of up to 560,000 points/second.”
For further information www.faro.com

Steel firm boosts quality management

Swiss Steel’s Emmenbrücke plant has awarded MET/Con an order to supply a PQA (Product Quality Analyzer) for quality management along its complete production chain. The new PQA from MET/Con will be implemented as a pilot for a group-wide Industry 4.0 initiative. With this quality management system, Swiss Steel aims to enhance quality levels along its production chain, achieve more stability in the production process, further improve on-time delivery performance and optimise company competitiveness.

MET/Con, a company of SMS Group, was commissioned to supply an integrated IT solution operating on knowledge-based expert rules. Use will be made of a software and database solution from Aachen-based QuinLogic, an SMS Group company. Solutions based on this approach have been successfully implemented at selected flat steel producers running a variety of downstream processes.
The PQA system carries out online analyses of process, production and quality data from steelmaking, casting and rolling, right down to the drawing processes. PQA quality rules, which can be freely configured and fed with specific know-how, take into account customer- and order-specific information in the quality assessment process and for the block-or-release decisions for the next downstream processing step.
With this project, Swiss Steel, Steeltec and MET/Con want to set a milestone showing how the performance, efficiency and quality level of the mill can be further improved by gaining total process and production transparency.
For further information www.sms-group.com

All-in-one vision system offers stability

Available from Keyence, the CV-X and XG-X series multi-spectrum vision systems now offer new levels of colour detection performance that will yield broader application potential for consistent and stable quality inspection in automated production. Keyence´s new eight-wavelength, multi-spectrum ring-lighting technology combines with high-speed monochrome cameras and software. As a whole, the system is said to offer flexibility in synchronised lighting, colour control, segmented lighting and image capture.

The new CA-DRM multi-spectrum lighting unit supports eight wavelengths, including infrared and ultraviolet, through dedicated colour LEDs. By harnessing the capabilities of multi-spectrum lighting, three operational modes can be selected or combined via software tools to provide an all-in-one image analysis solution that covers colour recognition, form and shape, surface gloss and target variability.
Keyence´s multi-spectrum vision systems are available as the CV-X series one-system solution, and the customisable XG-X series, which suits application-specific quality and inspection. The icon-driven CV-X is said to allow simple set-up for reliable product inspection, while the XG-X provides flowchart programming for flexible integration in large-scale automated machinery. Both variants offer a selection of CMOS cameras and controllers supporting resolutions of up to 21M pixels. CA-DRM multi-spectrum lighting units are available in nominal sizes of 50, 100 and 200 mm, and may also be equipped with dome and polarisation attachments.
The combination of hardware and software contributes to high levels of inspection stability through features such as real-time intensity controls that maintain illumination and optimise LED performance over time. These systems are designed for high-speed production applications and can be adapted for use on-the-fly to further optimise throughput.
For further information www.keyence.co.uk