Measuring the parts in-process is vital to the manufacturing process says Mohring: “Instead of producing a bunch of parts that do not get measured until later, in-process measurement catches issues right away, which reduces scrap and makes sure we don’t continue the manufacturing process while we’re making bad parts.”
Mike Cahill, Mechanical Engineer at OptiPro Systems explains how Q-Span® Workstation for example can measure glass cylinders coming out of the company’s OptiSonic grinding machine. The cylinder is made by a coring drill that like a mini-jack hammer oscillates through a large stack of glass. “OptiSonic technology significantly prolongs tool life, but it is inevitable that the diamond tool drill will wear over time as part of the grinding process, so the actual work piece size resulting from that fabrication process will vary,” he says. “Having the Q-Span® Workstation immediately measure core thickness of each cylinder enables us in an unmanned fashion to catch out-of-tolerance issues right away and change drills or feed rate if need be.”
