Take control of your quality

Manufacturers don’t just need machine tools to ensure their manufacturing processes run smoothly. Many other systems are in play.

With this in mind, I reached out to Elliott Foster, owner of CMMXYZ, a Mississauga, Ont., measuring equipment distributor and measuring services supplier, and had a very enlightening conversation.

When it comes to manufacturing, part accuracy always is of the upmost importance, which is not a groundbreaking insight. However, in many cases manufacturers use measuring services during the prototype stage to prove-out parts before they enter production.

Once the manufacturing stage begins, these same companies often look to purchase or lease equipment that will help ensure high part accuracy moving forward.

Quality Guarantee

Many manufactures even have guaranteed measuring processes as part of their purchase orders and promise the use of a coordinate measuring machine (CMM) in a proper clean room as a means of landing the contract.

Part inspection data is then supplied to the customer along with parts. What makes this relevant is that these CMMs are a very good asset to finance, and finding a funder for a CMM is just as easy as finding one for a machine tool.

Measuring systems are not just confined to a new CMMs. Used or rebuilt systems also can provide reliable measuring results. Vision systems, a term Foster used to describe inspection devices that use a camera or laser, and probing systems are suitable to measure even very small, complex parts.

There is clearly a move in the manufacturing industry to make parts smaller without giving up any accuracy, however, these vision systems can often be as expensive as conventional measuring equipment.

Another technology that manufacturers have been implementing for several years now is portable measuring arms. Arms have become very popular because they can provide the best of both worlds: laser scanning and probing. And while CMMs and other vision systems can cost more than $250,000, these arms can come at half the cost or less depending on functionality.

“An arm will be more of an addition as opposed to a replacement of a measuring machine because of its limited capability and the awkwardness of having to carry or move it around,” Foster said.

According to Foster, this has led to the popularity of hand-held and guided laser scanners, a technology that can measure as accurately and produce the same kind of data as a measuring arm but is wireless. Like the arm, this technology should be considered an accessory to a measuring machine. The value here is the ability for manufacturers to find problems in the shop, in real time, as opposed to being alerted at the end of the line when parts are audited with a CMM.

Consider Upgrades

If you have an older measuring system, an experienced seller/service provider can either upgrade its software or even a perform full retrofit, including a new control and probe system to bring it up-to-date.

A CMM, if maintained properly, has a useable life that spans decades, no different than a machine tool. Its ability to swap controls, probes, and lasers allows these machines to evolve by adopting new technology that did not exist when the system was originally manufactured.

The cost to upgrade an older machine typically is between $15,000 and $50,000, depending on the functionality required. If the machine is, for example, 25 years old, it may need to be retrofitted with a new control and probe system, along with software upgrades. The cost of this could grow to about $100,000, but it is much less expensive than purchasing a new system.

If the upgrade funds cannot be pulled from working capital, it is quite simple to arrange a lease to handle the costs. In either case, it is an extremely easy to keep the technology up-to-date.

Manufacturers typically look to add equipment for three reasons:

1. They have old machines that badly need to be replaced.
2. They have landed jobs and need new capacity.
3. They want to eliminate subcontracting.

The case to invest in measuring equipment basically follows this same thinking.

Subcontracting part measurement can be both very expensive and time-consuming. Sometimes it’s not an option for certain contracts. This means that if the necessary equipment—a proper CMM, along with a measuring arm or hand-held scanner—is installed using a lease, the monthly payment could be significantly less than the monthly cost for subcontracting your measuring services.

These machines also have a useful life far beyond the term of the lease, which typically is five years or less. Then, once the equipment is owned outright, the savings increase.

Normally, in this column I discuss why implementing new technology to add both capacity and productivity makes sense, regardless of where the funding is sourced, because it adds to bottom-line profits. When looking at a measuring system, the perspective changes to more of a cost savings point of view, because you will no longer manufacture inaccurate or unusable parts. It still has the same effect on profitability, however.

I thought the best point Foster made in our conversation was this: Installing measuring equipment not only increases profits, but also sends the signal to the marketplace of increased credibility in the accuracy of parts that a manufacturer can deliver.

CMMXYZ, www.cmmxyz.com

Ken Hurwitz is vice-president of Equilease Corp., 416-499-2449, ken@equilease.com, www.equilease.com.