Thickness measurement is the gauging of coatings or films on surfaces—such as paint on metal parts. Manufacturers are increasingly using thinner and higher-performance coatings these days, with tighter applied thickness tolerances and an increasing need for more accurate and precise tools.

The perfect part. The Holy Grail of manufacturing today is to produce parts with absolutely no quality defects, zero scrap rate, and no time required for changeover to new product builds when required.

The simple shaft is one of the ubiquitous items in every mechanical system. Shafts contain a number of key functional elements, such as splines, tapers, grooves, threads, cams and gears, which all have associated critical dimensions to allow these mechanical systems to perform the function for which they were designed.

QVI® TurnCheck™ automatic optical measurement systems use advanced optics to measure shafts and cylinders in seconds. Rugged, easy-to-use TurnCheck offers instant measurement of diameters, lengths, angles, radii, cylindricity, runout and more. 

Mahr will offer confocal measuring microscopes as the new product family MarSurf CM.

There are a variety of ways to perform automated, high precision measurement, each with its own strengths. Contact measurement is more effective for measuring specific features—holes for example—to ensure that they are where they belong and of the correct shape and size. 

Inspecting medical parts such as orthopedic implants and medical instruments pose a number of arduous challenges to manufacturers. 

The current trends in manufacturing can be summed up pretty much as they always have been: more for less. In other words, manufacturers always want to be able to do more with less.

Many of the most critical parts that make up industrial gas turbines (IGTs) have complex 5-axis geometries and very tight tolerances. 

Up until the late 1970s, the contour projector or optical comparator was the mainstay of automated two-dimensional inspection systems.