Inspection & Quality

Remember when you were the new employee? If you had any questions, you asked the individual closest to you. The Machinist's Corner column in the July 2017 issue of Cutting Tool Engineering magazine explores a better way to conduct orientation for new employees.

High-quality metrology feedback is one of the cornerstones of precision manufacturing, but that's easier said than done, according to the Shop Operations column in the July 2017 issue of Cutting Tool Engineering magazine.

A portable platform scale that has a battery operated digital indicator and can be easily moved around a facility from the warehouse to the loading dock is available from Alliance Scale Inc. The Alliance/CAS Transit series portable platform scale incorporates a tubular design with four-point overload protection and lets users easily weigh or count items virtually anywhere weighing happens.

Kwik Mark Inc. introduces its new line of X Series markers, which reportedly improve overall operation and streamline every aspect of marking your products. The smarter design boasts high performance for the most demanding applications.

Leading Marks LLC announces a package for pattern labeling that improves legibility for cast-in identification, and provides cost savings through labor and material costs. A marking press and a custom designed accessory package impact legends in one stroke of the press rather than rotating wheels one character at a time.

Koenigsegg, the Swedish manufacturer of high-end, high-performance sports cars, was featured in the 2016 documentary "APEX: The Story of the Hypercar," which describes the battle for a new class of high-speed, fast-pickup sport scars.

The most-recent trends in inspection technology include using powerful 3D software to compare the part to its CAD rendering, inspecting the part in-process—without having to take it out of the production line or cell—and, as much as possible, automating the inspection process.

Some might argue that edge finders, center finders and wigglers, which have been used for decades to touch off workpieces during machine setup, are a bit too analog for today's digital world.

EXAIR's new digital flowmeters with wireless capability use a Zigbee mesh network protocol to measure and monitor compressed air use, trends and historical data. Each meter has a range of 100ꞌ (30 meters) and transmits data to an Ethernet-connected gateway.

According to Frost & Sullivan's Industrial Automation and Process Control team, cognitive technologies and artificial intelligence (AI) are "poised to transform all manufacturing sectors." Partnership, collaboration, and technology investment are crucial for growth opportunities in an era when "data is the new currency." n

Aerotech's QFOCUS QF-50 piezo nanopositioning stage is designed for high-performance microscope objective and optics positioning. It offers 400 μm closed loop and 450 μm open loop travel, high speed, 0.01% linearity, sub-nanometer resolution, and 4 nm bidirectional repeatability.

HEMCO clean rooms are built to your exact size and design requirements. From ISO 6 to ISO 8, clean rooms can feature a single pass or recirculating airflow system.