So you have a great product, and there’s a great demand for it. You’ve addressed how to quickly produce it, and now you need to ensure the quality—fast. You can’t afford delays and need to keep costs down. One way to accomplish this is with fixture gaging, a simple, easy-to-use quality control alternative.Fixture gaging is an ideal alternative to using coordinate measuring machines, optical comparators or toolmakers microscopes, and is very useful for measuring relatively simple parts.

The aforementioned more sophisticated measuring methods require more lengthy, involved measuring procedures, a relatively high-level skill set and considerable expertise. Although necessary for many applications, complex measuring methods on manually operated systems are also more prone to human error.

Labor concerns
Unlike more complex measuring methods, fixture gaging is less labor intensive and requires much less training. Gage operators don’t have to be highly trained. In fact, little or no on the job training is needed—which means short lead time to get operators up and running and the product out the door.

The basic procedure for fixture gaging is to load the part, bring the measuring probes into contact with the part and enter the data. Then remove the part, load the next part and repeat the procedure.

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