In this issue of Quality Magazine's UPDATE: 

-Manufacturing Technology Consumption Up

- Surface Metrology Tools, Hardness Testing and Laser Tracking 

Quality 101: Laser Tracking Fundamentals by Joel Martin Laser tracking systems entered the manufacturing marketplace in 1991. At the time, pundits speculated the new mobile measurement system was just a passing fad, unstable and expensive. More than 15 years later, laser tracking has withstood the test of time with several thousand installations worldwide. The technology has established itself as a standard-issue metrology tool for in-place inspection of large parts and assemblies in both the automotive and aerospace industries. Major inroads are being made in other precision industry applications that require accuracies of a couple thousands of an inch. VIEW FULL STORY

Quantitative measurement of surface topography is now a key QC/QA requirement in an increasingly broad range of industries, products and materials. This includes measurements on finished products, research and development (R&D) into new surfaces and surface treatments and in-process monitoring during volume production. Materials include metals, composites, plastics, paper, painted and plated surfaces, porous surfaces and glass. Drivers for these measurements range from critical functional and performance impact, as in the case of a partially processed semiconductor wafer surface, to expected lifetime, such as for hip implant bearing surfaces, to aesthetic considerations, an example being orange peel in automotive paint. 
      A number of different contact and noncontact techniques currently support this application diversity, the two most widely used being white light interferometry and stylus profilometry. Now another technique with even higher resolution—atomic force microscopy— is poised to transition from the lab to at-line and on-line applications. VIEW FULL STORY

Case Study: Dimensional Measurement Success

Ogihara America Corp. (OAC, Howell, MI) is a subsidiary of the Japanese Ogihara Corp., a large independent automotive die manufacturer. The company motto is “Comply or surpass our customers’ most demanding quality requirements.”

In 2001, as part of the ongoing effort to improve operational performance, Ogihara conducted a thorough evaluation of their quality processes and systems. Ogihara’s objective was to raise their quality standards higher by transforming reactive quality processes to proactive ones, thus considerably lowering customer reported quality issues and maintaining best quality ratings. As a result of this evaluation, Ogihara’s engineers developed a process to be fully integrated into their product development and manufacturing program.

This new comprehensive quality process called for an advanced noncontact dimensional measurement system that could be easily operated in a shop floor environment and help resolve quality concern using root cause analysis methodology. However, it initially seemed that there was no product that could fully meet the various Ogihara requirements. VIEW FULL STORY