Inspection and Measurment Software Keeps Jobs on Track

Developing inspection and measurement applications in text-based programming has taken a giant leap forward in recent years, becoming key tools for architects and design engineers in conceptualization, pre-design presentations, animation and interference checking. Computer-aided inspection and measurement allows designers to verify increasingly complex and free-form shapes for a wide variety of products.

In the past, industry scribes indicated that traditional inspection techniques using calipers and micrometers were ineffective on those types of shapes, so a truly three-dimensional approach was required. This "seamless link" between design software and inspection software has led to great improvements in the quality process, which were achieved through concurrent engineering practices where the quality engineer had access - both early and often - to design data. Data translation, which can be prone to error, is immediately eliminated from the process. Additionally, the design engineer can use design software tools to place inspection features on 3-D parts prior to their release. This tolerance information can then be directly or automatically used by the inspection program to complete the quality process.

Rapid Inspection

In cases where two "as-built" parts need to be inspected quickly, this software can reduce inspection time a great deal by checking both scanned parts for measurement accuracy and structural weakness and then outputting standard reports or color plots. These plots and reports help designers locate and correct any part weaknesses that may crop up during the manufacturing stage. Inspection and measurement software also can show defects not only in the part, but also in the process. The color plot features in some systems can reveal manufacturing problems - such as lobing in turning operations or warpage in injection molding operations. After determining these problems, they can be corrected by modifying the chuck or by running more cooling channels. Solving these problems in the prototype stage - before the part goes to production - saves time and money.

"Inspection and measurement software can allow a manufacturing team to inspect product prototypes before they begin full-scale production, ensuring that all of the mating parts fit properly, thus preventing assembly problems," says Ping Fu, CEO of Raindrop Geomagic (Research Triangle Park, NC) - a developer and marketer of 3-D photography solutions. "Acknowledging that tolerance build-up in assemblies is an unfortunate but manageable problem is critical to tool designers. The ability to measure part deviation from CAD model to production part helps designers predict and account for manufacturing inaccuracies and reduces the amount of time spent reworking or redesigning parts."

Process Error Detection

The inspection process detects part and process errors - resulting in greater time compression because users can create a foolproof process based on the inspection process results. The continuing development of highly accurate scanners and their integration with rapid surfacing packages to streamline the process will have a tremendous impact on the inspection process. The ability to capture the geometric detail of an object with a scanner and create an equally detailed CAD surface within a matter of minutes would not only speed up the product development cycle, but also allow in-line inspection - ensuring that quality and tolerance standards are being met on the manufacturing floor.

"Customers will ask why they should purchase a laser or white-light digitizer and rapid inspection and measurement software instead of a CMM. We tell them that a rapid inspection package will dramatically improve their product development workflow because it provides immediate feedback on the difference between their manufacturing processes and their designs," says Brian Kissel, CEO of Paraform, Inc. (Santa Clara, CA) - a software solution provider to the global Build-to-Order (B2O) design through manufacturing chain.

"We also are consistently asked how our reverse engineering products can be used in conjunction with inspection and measurement software. Scanners can produce large amounts of data, but users require data in a way that is easily understood in the context of what they are doing. This feature returns the information in the user's desired format for the analytics in the part. Other features include least-squares registration, graphically-enhanced color error plots, CMM probe tip radius compensation, and so on. Further, our inspection product fully utilizes the intelligence of exact solid models against polyhedral (tessellated) solids to analytically compare 'as designed' feature elements (ribs, bosses, holes, planes, etc.) with the inspection data. This unique capability yields highly accurate results as compared to other solutions."

Inspection Collaboration

This trend is leading engineers toward web-enabled inspection solutions. Customers look for easy-to-use and integrated software that works within the parameters of their design systems. This easy integration with documentation software and spreadsheet software is a strong requirement. At the same time the trend toward NT-based CAD/CAM software is increasing, with some programs already integrated into the NT environment - which enables ease of use with products like MSWord and Excel.

Inspection processes have a huge impact on production and time-to-market costs. With global outsourcing of designs, tooling and analysis, it has become exceedingly difficult to conduct concurrent inspection using traditional means of sharing information. Collaboration solutions that allow easy access to inspection services over the Web without extensive setup times and costs save the engineering industry a great deal of time and money by enabling "make it right the first time" as the norm rather than the exception. If this is not done with modern tiered supply chain vendor management, there are a lot more opportunities for error, miscommunication and confusion.

Web-based inspection and measurement and collaboration play a key role in addressing these challenges. To be cost-effective and lend themselves toward broad implementation, these collaboration-based inspection solutions need to address the following market and engineering realities:

• Extended supply chain product lifecycle management is a heterogeneous activity. Each of the companies and individuals involved in the process has their own software tools, techniques, nomenclatures, information management systems and so on. With this in mind, companies need to know that inspection solutions must be robust enough to compare and contrast product geometry from any application (CAD, CAM, CAE, laser scanning) and any format (Pro/E, Solidworks, Catia, IGES, STEP, VGA, and all of the various CAM and CAE formats). This helps ensure that design intent, engineering performance and manufacturing constraints are all adequately addressed as a product moves from idea to volume production and in-use service and support. Web-based inspection and measurement and comparison is an element of the long-term solution to address this increased market reality.
• The ability to inspect and compare along a product's lifecycle alone is only part of the solution. Both customer and designer need to be able to share information and resolve issues associated with designs, materials, and manufacturing and assembly processes. Collaboration between all of the participants to help resolve issues needs to be secure, instantaneous and easy to use. If it's not, then people will resort to the most expeditious pathway available, often making unilateral, sub-optimal decisions that eventually generate delays, rework and additional cost at later stages. PDM solutions, for example, are not instantaneous and easy to use. They are expensive, time consuming and require program management and significant IT support to deploy, use and maintain. These are not the types of systems designed for dynamic, extended supply chain, multi-functional collaboration.