Machine Marriage
Making a part and measuring its quality have long been two very separate
operations. Often manufacturers send a finished part offsite to a facility
that houses a coordinate measuring machine (CMM), which checks the part's
conformity to specifications. For a company running a high-speed assembly
line, the delay means wasted time.
To avoid this inefficiency, the folks at Tokyo-based measuring-tools
manufacturer Mitutoyo have built a heavy-duty CMM called the Mach. The
device is robust enough to be integrated with a machine tool to determine
immediately if specifications are being met as a part is made. According to
Bill Wilde, manager of marketing and research at MTI, Mitutoyo's U.S.
subsidiary in Aurora, Ill., the Mach's measurement probe moves five times
faster than that of a conventional CMM. Wilde says that MTI aims to offer
the Mach commercially by mid-2000.
