June 7, 2005
Stillwater Technologies of Troy, Ohio is a specialty tooling and machining company that makes a huge array of parts. “They run anywhere from an inch in diameter up to three or four feet in diameter,” says Rusty Kaffenbarger, Inspection Manager, “and from a couple of inches long to seventy to eighty inches long.”
To handle the measurement inspection required by such a wide variety of part shapes and sizes, Stillwater realized a need to upgrade their coordinate measurement machine capability. Instead of investing in brand new machines, Stillwater sought to retrofit their older CMMs with fast, easy-to-use software. Ideally, they wanted a program that was smart enough to support walk-up quick measurement, one-click CAD-measure, collision-free CAD-teach, virtual simulation, real-time verification, advanced path planning, CAD alignment and datum alignment.
But how could they get everything they needed with off-the-shelf retrofit software at a reasonable price? “After a lot of careful looking around, we upgraded our Sheffield® Apollo R150 CMM and a column machine with CMM-Manager™ software,” Mr. Kaffenbarger says. “And it’s boosted our throughput by three or four times. With our old function library, we struggled to keep the machine operating two or three hours a day. Now we can run eight to nine hours a day.”
Windows®-based CMM-Manger software from Integrated Quality offers easy CAD-based graphical programming that lets you create, modify and verify inspection problems directly from a CAD model. An exclusive “Click-n-Measure” feature means the operator simply clicks on a part feature optimal part measurement automatically. The new software also speeds the inspection process with walk-up measurement that provides a simple user interface for easy inspection in just minutes. CMM-Manager software also provides Automatic Collision Avoidance, which modifies the probe’s path to avoid obstacles. Within the constraints of collision avoidance, CMM Manager optimizes the probe path for best inspection throughput.
CMM-Manager offers advanced reporting functions, including Drag-n-Drop graphical report creation, and Graphics Assisted Tolerance Reporting, which highlights reporting and datum features for easy visual confirmation. Built-in Best-Fit Analysis lets operators compare measurement data to a CAD model for improved inspection accuracy. A Web-Ready Report function to quickly create an HTML report for email or web-posting. To adapt CMM Manager to their CMMs, the only things Stillwater had to change were a few chips on an old processor and a couple of cables. “Other than that,” according to Mr. Kaffenbarger, “we didn’t have to do any machine modifications. The easy programming through Windows makes all the difference. Before, you had to tell it every move it had to make. Now you just click and drag and the self-teach function gives you all your information. It handles alignment chores easier and quicker, too.”
Another time saver is that Stillwater can now store part programs now. “So if we know we’re going to run a program again,” Mr. Kaffenbarger explains, “the operator just checks his first part and stores the data. Our old software was OFI and FLB running on MS DOS—now, with the Windows system, it’s a breeze to program and to pick up old part programming. It’s so easy to pull it back up and establish your reference point.”