Productive Times: Capacity relief: CMM Inspection

The following scenario might sound familiar: The quality-assurance technician is out sick. The backlog for the coordinate measuring machine is five jobs deep. A machinists must check a hole position on a rush job.

These common occurrences can cause machine downtime, worker frustration, lost productivity and bad parts. Some parts manufacturers attempt to solve these problems by placing a conventional CMM in the production area, but this consumes valuable floor space and often requires plumbing for compressed air, a special foundation and significant operator training. What’s more, most CMMs are not suitable for the temperature swings and less-than-pristine air quality that are typical in many production environments.

There’s also the annual licensing fees associated with most CMM software, noted Nathan Blair, plant manager for Greenlee Textron Inc., Genoa, Ill. In the facility’s 63,000-sq.-ft. manufacturing space, the company machines and assembles a vast array of steel and aluminum products for the electrical, and other, industries. These include punches, dies, electric and hydraulic benders, cable pullers, hydraulic impact wrenches and drills, chain saws and pruners. “I think we have somewhere in the neighborhood of 700 products,” he said.

The XM 3D system from Keyence measures parts on the shop floor
using a hand-held probe. Image courtesy of Keyence.

With that many products and about 80 employees, up to half of whom are machinists, the company was experiencing capacity constraints on its two large, production CMMs. “When you are constantly launching products, you just hit bottlenecks,” Blair said, “where you have three new programs and a prove-out going on at once, for instance, and then you have people waiting at a CMM.”

He added that running a CMM program can consume an hour, such as when tolerances are in the “tenths” or when part length is a couple feet or more.

Aggravating the situation was the facility’s quest to increase automation and connectivity via the Industrial Internet of Things. According to Blair, that increases the emphasis on gathering part-quality data and the frequency of part measurements.

Greenlee Textron searched for a solution and selected the XM 3D measurement system from Keyence Corp. of America, Itasca, Ill., based on the system’s ability to be moved from one machine to another, be used in an industrial environment and enhance shop connectivity, Blair explained.