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A family-owned business from the start, G5 Outdoors really began in 1966, when Louis Grace Sr. founded Grace Engineering in Memphis, Michigan. It’s vision statement is “Precision products through innovative manufacturing.” Over the years, the company has grown and become known for developing innovative manufacturing practices and quality products.
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Grace Sr. emphasized the importance of quality assurance in manufacturing with the mantra of, “You are only as good as you can measure.” The level of manufacturing expertise rises only to the level of the quality department’s ability to check a part.
In 2000, Louis Grace Jr. filed for a patent using metal-injection molding, or Monoflow Technology, to manufacture a broadhead for the archery industry. A year later, G5 Outdoors was born as the proverbial “better mousetrap” for an all-steel broadhead.
To this day, both G5 and Grace Engineering adhere to their measurement philosophy by continuously honing their measuring skills to keep up with the latest techniques and equipment. Harnessing and nurturing innovation in everything they do as companies is the essence of their existence.
G5’s slogan of “Designed to Hunt” captures its spirit of design and its passion for bowhunting. The company continues its mission of building bows with the highest level of craftsmanship and quality in the industry at a good price, and using game-changing technology to create new standards for accuracy and innovation not seen before.
Problem
The parts that G5 produces offer unique shapes and sizes and can be very prohibitive, cumbersome, and time-consuming for standard inspection techniques. These parts vary in size from the quite small (0.125 in. diameter x 3/8 in. long) to much larger, heavier, and more complex-shaped parts (up to 34 in. long and weighing up to approximately 15 lbs each). It is these larger parts that provided the need and impetus for the company to look for additional inspection options.
Prior to this, G5 used a variety of typical traditional measurement methods such as hand gauges, surface plates, height gauges, and optical comparators. Each of these had a combination of issues such as not fast enough, not capable, or too complicated to set up.
Solution
“We considered a bridge-type CMM to provide the additional inspection capabilities that older technologies could not satisfy,” says Jeff White, G5’s quality manager. “But as much as we needed to maintain quality, we were not overly anxious to put out a large capital outlay for a fixed CMM that was big enough for our needs.”
The solution to that restraint was to implement a portable CMM, the FARO Gage. The gauge has improved G5’s capabilities and met its needs in multiple ways. The device is easy to use by both operators and inspectors, and the software is easily interpreted and can be used for writing new measurement programs.
“We really like the fact that we can move the gauge out to the machining operation and check a part, tool, fixture, or anything that we need to without removing anything from the machine,” says White. “This is really a great asset for quickly and accurately verifying our processes and setups.”
G5 is still expanding its uses of the FARO Gage even beyond the shop floor. With its ease of use, the gauge has been readily accepted by everyone at both G5 and Grace Engineering, and they look forward to discovering additional uses as everyone gets even more comfortable with the technology.
G5 uses FARO for its incoming inspection of supplier parts as well as during their machining. It is used for all inbound shipments of raw material, in-process inspection, and product development, problem solving, and process development of tooling and fixtures.
“We are able to measure, report, and quantify items on parts for our operators and our suppliers much more quickly and accurately than we could with other inspection methods,” says White. “This results in better overall quality and throughput.”
Return on investment
The incoming inspection of bow riser forgings, for example, took one to two hours per batch to inspect the primary concerns of forging flatness and straightness. Using the FARO Gage, these same inspections can be done in 15 to 30 minutes maximum. That is a tremendous time savings. The estimated time and money savings for G5, just on these incoming forging inspections, have been many hours and at least $5,000 in just a couple of months.
“For G5, we can see that the information we are gaining using FARO will allow us to perfect new applications and acquire even more jobs,” says White. “The time savings and more accurate feedback we’ve gained since implementing FARO has greatly improved our processes and our capabilities.”
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