All Features
Chuck Pfeffer
Remember when you got your first bicycle? You probably started riding it with training wheels. Soon enough the training wheels came off, and then you eventually went looking for hills and jumps. At some point, as you became better, you took your hands off the handle bars. There was a liberating…
Geomagic
Geomagic, a developer and global provider of 3-D software for capturing, creating, and inspecting digital models of physical objects, has acquired Sensable Technology Inc.’s 3-D design and haptics businesses. Sensable Technology, of Wilmington, Massachusetts, is a leading developer of volumetric…
API Services
This past month API Services and New River Kinematics teamed up for a historic preservation project at St. Luke’s Church and Museum in Smithfield, Virginia. Together, they provided a full building scan and collected point cloud data to keep records for the church and its ongoing restoration.
For…
Four-dimensional computed tomography, or 4-D CT, is the latest development in the realm of industrial X-ray inspection for the nondestructive testing industry. In the simplest of terms, 4-D CT is a 3-D X-ray computed tomography process that captures movement over a period of time.
Like most other…
Steve Geraghty
Although the many logistical aspects of product assembly make the welding stage of manufacturing inherently challenging, assembling products in high-mix environments is particularly demanding, since several different product models are processed every day. Many part numbers and part scenarios…
Bruce McDuffee
Humidity is a tough measurement. It’s very hard to get a repeatable measurement with low uncertainty. This post discusses seven best practices that will help you make a more accurate, repeatable, and reliable humidity measurement. The recommendations are primarily based on the NPL document, “A…
Mike Richman
This has been a fun week for us at Quality Digest, as we’ve had a chance to support World Metrology Week and one of our long-standing partners, the Coordinate Metrology Society (CMS). As many of you know, the CMS is the organization behind the annual Coordinate Metrology Systems Conference (CMSC…
The cold, stark landscape of Antarctica is home to penguins, ice, high winds, and two antennae owned by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the independent federal agency that supports and funds all fields of fundamental science and engineering in the United States. The severe conditions of the…
Exact Metrology
Any data captured in the scanning process is not perfect. Data accuracy depends on the accuracy of the scanning equipment as well as the conditions under which the measurements are made. To properly report measured data, the error associated with the measurement should be taken into account…
Belinda Jones
At the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri, the highlight of its Egyptian galleries is an elaborate and complete funerary assemblage from the tomb of a 2,300-year-old noblewoman named Meret-it-es. The initial room layout of the Egyptian galleries revealed the space would be…
Belinda Jones
SolarReserve’s first-generation solar power plant is a welcome sign of green progress. Once the Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project is completed in 2013, it will generate roughly 480,000 megawatt hours per year of clean, renewable electricity to power 75,000 homes during peak electricity periods.…
Konica Minolta Sensing Americas Inc.
The Frederic Remington Museum is dedicated to displaying, observing, and preserving the works of Frederic Remington. Most famous for his bronze sculptures of cowboys, American Indians, and U.S. Calvary, original Remington pieces are considered prized collector’s items.
The Frederic Remington…
Georgia Institute of Technology
Taking advantage of the force generated by magnetic repulsion, researchers have developed a new technique for measuring the adhesion strength between thin films of materials used in microelectronic devices, photovoltaic cells, and microelectromechanical systems (MEMS).
The fixtureless and…
During the past 18 months, Seatronics, an Acteon company, along with Technip, Star Net Geomantics, and BlueView Technologies, have been developing the BlueView 3D system for underwater metrology. The system combines terrestrial laser and underwater, 3-D multibeam sonar-scanning technology to…
Mountz
In the manufacturing and assembly world, tightening, controlling, or measuring torque fasteners is imperative for production efficiency. An inadequately torqued fastener can vibrate or work loose; conversely, if the tension is too high, the fastener can snap or strip its threads. Faced with these…
NIST
Organic solar cells may be a step closer to market because of measurements taken at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), where a team of scientists has developed a better fundamental understanding of how to optimize the cells’…
Umberto Tunesi
Editor’s note: Umberto Tunesi is a new columnist for Quality Digest. He brings his auditing expertise to bear on a surprising range of subjects, and we’re happy to add his European perspective to our mix. “I realize I’m being tough on the ISO/TS 16949 and AIAG manual writers, as well on performance…
NIST
Weights and measures are indispensable. From the grocery store to the gas pump, all kinds of consumer products are sold by some measurable quantity, whether it’s length, count, volume, or weight. These values, the machines that measure them, and the people who measure the machines to ensure their…
Belinda Jones
When it comes to metrology, particularly as it applies to portable 3-D applications, no organization is more committed to this discipline than the Coordinate Metrology Society (CMS). Each year, the CMS welcomes abstracts for presentations and technical papers for its annual Coordinate Metrology…
William Fetter
As Atlantis touched down for the final time at the Kennedy Space Center, it marked the poignant end of the Space Shuttle program. However, the precious cargo it left behind at the International Space Station could lead the way to a new wave of future missions. The first Robotic Refueling Mission, a…
Philip Hewitt
Aircraft manufacturing is international, with a complex supply chain dividing work among numerous companies around the world. Globalized manufacturing and outsourcing brings challenges and opportunities for suppliers.
Technical challenges include improving the quality of complex components with…
Jason Jonassen
Even though contact “drag” scanning and noncontact laser scanning are prevalent in our industry, there are many manufacturers who still use kinematic touch trigger probes. Questions often come up regarding when a probe should be replaced. Is there a best practice for troubleshooting?
Of course,…
Chuck Pfeffer
“That’s so 27 seconds ago.” My daughter and I recently heard this catch phrase on a television commercial. We had a good laugh because there was some truth to it. We are living in a world of real-time updates, and it does not stop at news and social media. It extends to all facets of our lives.
In…
Mountz
During the assembly of parts using an electric torque screwdriver, there are many things to consider to achieve proper torque control. Is the joint hard or soft? What material is being used? Is the screw lubricated or treated with a locking patch? One factor that’s often overlooked is the RPM…
NIST
The great artist and inventor Leonardo da Vinci once said, “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) research engineer Javier Atencia certainly believes in the wisdom of what da Vinci preached; he has a reputation for creating novel…
