Developments in technology are driven by what we want to achieve with it. Even in the three years since I joined Hexagon, I’ve noticed a shift in attitudes towards the role of quality in manufacturing. Of course, our company is quite sensitive to this shift as during in this period we rebranded from Hexagon metrology to Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence.
After a couple of days spent at Control, the world’s leading tradeshow for quality assurance, I’m increasingly convinced that the desire to utilise quality data more effectively across the manufacturing process and use it to achieve better productivity is a growing trend. Walking the floor at this traditionally metrology-focused tradeshow, I was struck by how many customers are looking for more than just quality assurance. Our closed-loop manufacturing cell demonstration attracted a lot of attention for that very reason – it’s a great way to show the power of connecting solutions from traditionally discrete phases of manufacturing. In this instance, the cell brought together machine tool probing, shop-floor metrology and statistical process control (SPC) systems to identify and control the impact of tool wear and temperature fluctuations on the production of a small part, but in truth this only scratches the surface of the potential we see in connected data.
If you couldn’t make the show, check out the mash-up video to see the cell in action alongside a collection of our latest metrology hardware and software solutions.
