A recent article in Quality Magazine is a great summary of some modern trends in gaging. At New Scale Robotics, we are working to combine these digitized gages with collaborative robots – helping manufacturers automate gaging with robotic tools that are as easy to use as a smartphone.
A Q-Span Workstation allows for the seamless integration of a manufacturer’s preferred manual inspection technologies, including calipers, bore gages, height gages, and pin gages for contact gaging, as well as air gages, laser micrometers, and vision systems for non-contact gaging.
Automating using a Q-Span Workstation increases throughput, addresses labor shortages, and improves process control.
From the article:
All types of gaging, whether it be hand tools, comparative gages, complex measuring stations or portable surface finish gages, have long gone digital. Many of today’s digital gages can perform complex measuring tasks and share information faster and easier than systems produced 10 years ago.
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In many facilities, the quality control technician monitoring part quality in an inspection room, in a far corner of the plant, long after the product was produced is so 20th century. The norm today is monitoring part quality at the point of manufacture. This allows operators to inspect the part for quality and, using process control techniques, prevent bad parts from being produced.
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However, production operators have been trained to run fast, powerful and complex machine centers; they are not necessarily trained as quality control technicians. Thus, the gaging that is placed into the machinist’s hands must produce accurate and reliable measurements and also be easy to use without additional training.
That ease of use is just one benefit of a Q-Span Workstation for gaging.
