You’ve made the threaded parts and are confident they are okay because you’ve checked them with your gages. Then you get the call from the customer advising you that their gages have rejected the parts and they are demanding re-work or replacements ASAP.

In recent columns I’ve commented on information requests accompanying calibration orders. Some of these are common and effective but some are not. Occasionally, they are brought about due to their inclusion in one standard or another but are misrepresented. In some cases, the standard they are from relates to in-house systems rather than calibration activities by outside parties.

If you want to get technical, this topic is better dealt with by others since it is a quality matter rather than dimensional metrology where I hide out. But, disputes go on every day over measurements and sometimes resolving them can be quite challenging—when possible. 

The platform aims to minimize overall delivery timing of custom automation, increase through-put, and reduce scrap through increased, 100% inspection and automated measurement.

Establishing calibration intervals for gages and instruments is a tricky business, particularly if you’re starting from scratch. Calibration data, knowledge of metrology and experience come into play in this game so before we begin, let’s look at the goal we hope to achieve.

Craig Kuchta, the new Fischer representative and technical adviser for this office, has more than 20 years of technical instrumentation sales and support of products by manufacturers such as Siemens, Honeywell and Wika.

Despite best efforts, auditors find things. It is their job. Why wait until audit day to uncover problems? In the words of Walt Disney, “The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” 

Nothing could be simpler than fixed limit gages which explains why they remain so popular. But nothing so simple can remain so when humans are involved. 

Beginning some 30 years ago, portable surface finish gages—some small enough to fit in a shirt pocket—brought a new level of part control to the manufacturing floor.

The basic concept of a thread plug is to provide a quick inspection for machinists and quality inspectors to verify that the threads are within the accepted tolerance so that it interacts with the mating part correctly.