There’s a long-lived adage in woodworking and carpentry—measure twice, cut once. As civilization grew and evolved from millions of years ago when primitive cutting tools were used to hunt and gather food, a need for more accurate cutting tools grew and evolved with it.

Wilbur and Orville Wright began experimenting with the idea of flight in 1899, and their first aircraft famously took flight in 1903. “It was the Wrights' genius and vision to see that humans would have to fly their machines, that the problems of flight could not be solved from the ground,” according to the National Park Service.

Simply put, product quality is always on the mind of a production manager. But what exactly characterizes a quality product? Is it when CMM inspection data reads good versus bad?

The load cell sensor is arguably the most important component in a force measurement or material testing system’s ability to provide accurate, precise and valid measurements. A sensor’s accuracy is often the primary characteristic that is used to specify a load cell sensor for a given application.

Displacement, distance and position can be measured using laser triangulation sensors. The reasons are clear: easy installation, large measuring ranges and high accuracy. Enhanced functionality enables the optoNCDT 1420 laser sensors from Micro-Epsilon to perform measurement tasks even more quickly and efficiently.

Today’s on-the-go-consumers demand products that can multitask, from portable meal kits and one-minute makeup to smartphones that can measure your heartbeat or control your thermostat.

Fine-tuning coordinate measuring machines (CMMs) to the functional needs of manufacturers has changed the way they view quality inspection.