All Features
Britta Voss
When you email friends, you don’t have to worry about whether they use Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, or some other email provider. You just enter their email address, write your message, and hit send. The reason this works is because there are layers of standardized protocols that all the email clients…
Andrew Edman
On factory floors all over the world, 3D printing has quietly moved from a prototyping novelty to an essential tool. Advances in printer technology and material science mean that today’s 3D printed parts are robust enough to hold up to real-world wear and tear, and precise enough for demanding…
Simon Côté
The aerospace industry is known for manufacturing parts with critical dimensions and tight tolerances, all of which must undergo demanding inspections. Given the scale of the controls to be carried out on these parts, it is hardly surprising that quality people in the industry prefer to turn to…
Belinda Jones
Women who crashed the glass ceiling in male-dominated fields have compelling stories about the trajectory of their careers. These days, I think a lot about those inadvertent role models, thankful for their determination to pursue big dreams so I could pursue mine. Trailblazers like Dr. Bonnie…
Belinda Jones
Change is the only constant in life.” This quote is attributed to Heraclitus, a very influential Greek philosopher from the late sixth century BCE. His time-honored words still hold true in 2019, and change indeed continues to shape the metrology industry. The dynamics of the marketplace are…
Matthew Ilardo
I am looking forward to another year serving the community of the Coordinate Metrology Society. I would like to encourage our metrology membership to revel in your accomplishments, and expand your horizons in 2020 by taking on something new. Every year the CMS strives to expand its content,…
Fringe projection techniques offer fast, noncontact measurements of the surface form of manufactured parts. Fringe projection has seen successful implementation in the automotive, aerospace, and medical industries. Recently, advances in fringe projection have reduced the sensitivity of the…
Mike Richman
For any of you who missed it, CMSC 2019 was, as always, a first-class conference with loads of great content, exciting new product and service offerings, and numerous unique opportunities for knowledge transfer with the leading metrologists in industry and academia.
Taking place July 22–26 at the…
Andrei Vakulenko
Taylor Attachments, based in the United Kingdom, custom designs and produces tractor headstock conversion brackets. These are attachments for farm handlers and loaders, for mounting everything from buckets to forks, grapples, saws, carriers, bale stabbers, grabbers, hitches, backhoes, tillers, yard…
Ryan E. Day
Although certification to major standards is often the threshold to winning next-level contracts, it is when your organization synthesizes the standard’s values that real payoff is realized. Chief among those values is customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction is paramount to attracting new…
DP Technology
Founded in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 2001, Green Tools is a leading manufacturer of cutting tools, providing circular saws and other woodcutting machines for the sawmill, furniture, and woodworking industries throughout Russia.
Green Tools began as a small reseller of woodworking tools produced…
Dat Duthinh
One of the undergraduate engineering courses that left a deep and lasting impression on me was a course on innovation and aesthetics in engineering taught by David Billington at Princeton University. So, when I read the story of a skyscraper in New York that had to undergo secret emergency repairs…
ZEISS Industrial Quality Solutions
Decanter centrifuges from Hiller GmbH, headquartered in Vilsbiburg, Germany, are in demand globally. These centrifuges separate solid and fluid materials, such as in the production of olive oil or wine, or for wastewater treatment. The multiton machines achieve high yields unmatched by competitors…
Edward Herceg
Those of us old enough to remember the “good old days” recall that grade school focused on learning the three R’s: readin’, ’ritin’, and ’rithmetic. In the world of sensors, there are also three Rs: repeatability, resolution, and response. Despite how important these sensor parameters are, there is…
Tim Mouw
Spending too much time and money on incorrect color? Even if you use the best color measurement tools available, your color will still fail without quality control. You may think you’re doing everything right, but if you (or worse, your customers) are rejecting a lot of products, then there’s more…
Ryan E. Day
Industrial Custom Products (ICP) is a world leader in prototyping, developing, and manufacturing high-quality OEM and custom thermoformed and vacuum formed plastic components, as well as die cut and dieless knife-cut parts. What makes ICP unique among its competitors is its award-winning quality,…
NIST
Ordinarily, you won’t encounter a radiation thermometer until somebody puts one in your ear at the doctor’s office, or you point one at your forehead when you’re feeling feverish. But more sophisticated and highly calibrated, research-grade “noncontact” thermometers—which measure the infrared (heat…
Ryan E. Day
Midwest Metrology Solutions (MMS) is a company in Indiana that provides onsite precision measurement services using state-of-the-art metrology equipment and software. With an extensive knowledge of geometric dimensioning and tolerancing (GD&T), a primary focus on quality, and a proven track…
Jeremy Marvel
I was told there would be robots.
We are living in a world in which we are surrounded by technology tailored to our needs. Our clothes are treated with nanoparticles to resist wrinkles and stains. We have sent probes beyond the farthest reaches of our solar system, and we have selfie-taking…
Isaac Maw
In manufacturing today, data analysis tools can give management the information it needs to make better decisions in areas such as maintenance and labor. Unfortunately, however, many data analytics systems require large sets of historical data to generate accurate and useful results.
According to…
Calibrating an absolute distance meter (ADM) laser tracker requires long linear distances. For such distances, the room temperature is a significant factor. Even though the calibration room’s temperature is controlled within ± 2° C, actual temperature and temperature variation in one end of the…
Mike Richman
On May 20, 1875, representatives from 17 of the leading industrial nations of the world met in Paris to set precise international standards for the meter and kilogram. Coming out of the meetings, the signatories to the Treaty of the Metre agreed to maintain internationally accepted standards and…
Belinda Jones
The Coordinate Metrology Society is pleased to announce Michael Raphael, president of Direct Dimensions and a veteran metrologist, will give the keynote address at this year's Coordinate Metrology Society Conference (CMSC). Former NASA astronaut, engineer, and educator Dr. Bonnie Dunbar will be the…
Belinda Jones
There are plenty of opinions in the blogosphere about technical papers, their value to the marketplace, and the pros and cons of producing them. Despite all the debate on the topic, the tirelessly persisting technical paper is here to stay. For the measurement professional, there is no richer…
Scott Sandwith
No matter how much metrology experience you have gained as a practitioner, the 2019 Coordinate Metrology Society Conference (CMSC) is designed so every level of attendee can learn something new. CMSC provides the venue to explore new concepts, systems, interfaces, tools, and the opportunity to…
