Automated Metrology for Enhanced Manufacturing Efficiency

At the +Vantage Assembly & Metrology Division of Acieta, metrology technology is one of the cornerstones of our business. Our systems allow you to integrate your inspection and measurement technology seamlessly within your manufacturing process for enhanced speed and quality.

Automated metrology equipment provides incredible value to your production processes, improving throughput, traceability, and quality while reducing downtime. Here, we take a closer look at how automation and metrology are changing manufacturing efficiency, and how Acieta can help you leverage the right solutions for success.

What is Inline Metrology?

Inline metrology refers to automatic measurements executed and integrated within the manufacturing process. With this technology, parts do not need to be removed from the automated production line to be inspected. The inline metrology industry is rapidly growing to accommodate the streamlined manufacturing processes companies require today to meet demand.

Inline vs. Offline Inspection

In traditional offline inspection, a part goes through a long, manual process, which includes:

• The part is removed from the manufacturing flow by hand
• The part is placed within a measurement gauge or CMM
• Measurements are recorded
• A pass/fail is determined for the part
• The part is either placed back into the manufacturing flow or discarded

Automated metrology solutions are different. Depending on the needs of the process, they use contact probes, visual inspection, or another measurement system to inspect the part in motion. By not interrupting the production flow, these systems increase the consistency and speed of the measurement, eliminate human error, and allow for process control through constant data collection.

Benefits of Automated Metrology Solutions

• Enhanced product quality with fewer errors
• Real-time data for analysis and improvements
• Accurate measurements for reduced waste
• A competitive edge thanks to precise inspection and quality products

The Costs of Offline Inspection

Offline inspection is not just inefficient but costly to your production line in terms of lost productivity, manual labor, and potential defect inclusion in your final production batches.

Manual inspection processes require keeping a fully staffed metrology lab on-site, running shifts on the same schedule as your production cycle in order to evaluate components from each production run. They then must accurately analyze and return parts in time to be processed with the rest of their batch.

Each individual chain in this process requires a human operator to remove a part from the line, hand it off to a technician for inspection, and then either return it or designate it as defective. Each link in this chain also opens the door to human error. For example, an operator may not label the test article correctly, or a metrology technician on the third shift may misread results amidst the chaos of a busy lab at late hours. These errors could let rejected parts find their way back into the production cycle.

Ultimately, manual testing harms the traceability of your product, if not breaking the traceability chain entirely, costing time to recall defective parts, as well as labor costs. Fortunately, implementing inline metrology helps manufacturers overcome these challenges.

What Does Inline Gauging Add?

Manual CMMs are always necessary for any production line, giving you the baseline for precision and allowing you to designate master specimens to compare against. However, inline inspection is the superior option for moment-to-moment inspection during the production process.

Inline inspection doesn’t require human intervention or the removal of parts from the production line for time-consuming inspection. Instead, it acts as another step in the manufacturing process, and is seamlessly integrated into production.

Through inspection gauges, vision cameras, or other metrology methods, inline inspection can be entirely automated, streamlining your measurement process. This can be achieved by allowing an armature or other robotic fixture to take a sample from the prior step, place it within the test cell, issue a pass/fail, and then place the test article accordingly.

Inline metrology also offers the added benefit of automatically reading bar codes, laser marking, or other information encoded onto the part. This ensures quality information is directly transmitted to your Manufacturing Execution System (MES) software without the need for manual data entry. It also enables powerful process control to easily track the quality of rapidly moving parts.

How Acieta Makes Inline Inspection Work for You

Our decades of experience in metrology and automation, combined with our role as your single source supplier and system integrator, place Acieta in a unique position to provide you with automated, inline inspection technology for your measurement process.

We offer a broad range of automation solutions. Since all of our machines are fully integrated, this allows for tool compensation between CNC and test cells for fully automated handoff. It also allows for the automatic capturing of quality data for Statistical Process Control (SPC), a task that would otherwise be offloaded to a lab technician for manual entry after each run of a CMM.

Automated metrology equipment can even be used in harsh environments, allowing for dependable inspection and quality no matter your industry. Inline inspection is the future of manufacturing quality assurance, and Acieta has the products, skills, and support to make it work for you.

Download Your Free Metrology eBook

Want to learn more about our automated metrology solutions? Learn how this powerful technology can enhance your manufacturing processes and support your business goals? Download your copy of our free metrology eBook today!