Bosch Uses GAGEtrak^® To Ensure Accurate, Reliable Measurements

The Bosch Group is a leading global supplier of technology and services in the areas of automotive and industrial technology, consumer goods and building technology. The Automotive Technology division is Bosch’s largest business sector in North America employing approximately 12,200 associates at approximately 30 primary locations.

While there are 29 Bosch US and international facilities that have GAGEtrak installed, the Anderson, SC location of Robert Bosch is responsible for managing 4,500 gages and conducting 4,000 calibrations each year to ensure accurate and reliable measurements of their gasoline systems products.

Bosch chooses GAGEtrak Calibration Management Software to track their metrology assets, schedule their calibrations and maintain a system that is compliant with their corporate quality requirements and standards.

Prior to GAGEtrak, the company used filing cabinets and index cards to track calibrations. With GAGEtrak, the calibration tracking process at Robert Bosch became almost paperless. “GAGEtrak streamlined our recall process,” says Thomas.

As a leading global supplier of automotive and industrial technology, Bosch is serious about quality and performance and chooses GAGEtrak to help ensure measurement accuracy and reliability.

GAGEtrak is used at thousands of facilities worldwide to improve measurement quality, assure compliance and increase efficiency. Contact CyberMetrics today to learn how GAGEtrak will do the same for your company.

Reduced Measuring Times by Around 50% for Medical Plastics Manufacturer

High-throughput mass production processes at Gerresheimer require large numbers of fast and precise measurements on a wide variety of parts. The company therefore saw the need to optimize its performance, simplify its quality processes, and integrate new software functionalities. This in turn would reduce measuring times by around 50% and ensure measurability for added flexibility.

This standardization based on the ZEISS portfolio was aimed at generating greater efficiency along the Gerresheimer production chain. By establishing a standard with the ZEISS O-INSPECT CMM, Gerresheimer could ensure that any optimization of this machine would directly benefit its operations on a global level. And regarding additional steps such as the current integration of ZEISS PiWeb reporting and analysis software for traceable results, close collaboration between Gerresheimer and ZEISS once again promised to deliver.

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Industrial valve manufacturer introduces AM to oil and gas

To explore the benefits of additive manufacturing (AM) processes in the oil and gas sector, leading UK industrial valve supplier KOSO Kent Introl has collaborated with global engineering technologies company, Renishaw. To support the company's adoption of AM, Renishaw has installed a RenAM 500Q Flex at the valve manufacturer's headquarters in Brighouse, West Yorkshire. As the first UK valve parts manufacturer in the oil and gas industry to introduce the technology, Kent Introl will use AM to rapidly develop and produce components for its customers in a more efficient and cost-effective way.

Kent Introl engineers and supplies high-quality valves that perform in severe service conditions in oil and gas applications. To meet growing industry demand to adopt innovative technologies, increase energy efficiency and reduce carbon emissions, the company will explore how AM can help optimize part design, provide on-demand services and improve productivity. The company will initially use the RenAM 500Q Flex as part of its research and development of new parts. To meet the changing needs of customers the team will also experiment with AM to understand how to diversify production to deliver rapid part development.

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Futaba Industrial reduces measurement time by 45% and implements digital transformation enterprisewide with PolyWorks®

Futaba Industrial, a global automobile stamped parts manufacturer headquartered in Japan, revolutionizes their measurement processes and achieves a remarkable 45% reduction in measurement time through digital transformation.

With a rich history dating back to 1945 and over 10,000 employees worldwide, the company faced the challenge of maintaining stringent quality standards in automobile part production. Their traditional approach of using manual gauges and vernier calipers for measurements was inefficient, since dependent on individual skills, and the manual transcription of results lead to errors.

To overcome these hurdles, Futaba Industrial took a first step and adopted 3D measurement devices and the PolyWorks|Inspector™ software, back in 2001. What began as a single factory implementation evolved into a widespread integration across 10 factories in Japan, featuring non-contact 3D measurement devices and CNC CMMs.

As the use of 3D measurement devices expanded, the need for centralized data management became evident. Futaba Industrial turned to the PolyWorks|DataLoop™ solution in 2019. This second step toward digital transformation revolutionized their data sharing and knowledge utilization across departments and factories. By using PolyWorks, they cut their measurement time almost in half, and plan to soon make the same changes in their overseas factories to achieve similar benefits.

Discover how Futaba’s transformational experience can benefit your business.

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Manufacturer Saves Over $1,000,000/yr. With QI Macros

One aluminum manufacturer was having trouble with excess scrap. While there was significant, unavoidable startup scrap, other opportunities to reduce scrap became obvious after some analysis.

While many pounds of finished material were inspected and found wanting before shipment, roughly 40,000 pounds of finished metal was returned each month. Shipping and return costs ate into profitability. Finished metal cost about one dollar per pound. Returned metal had to be chopped up and fed back into the furnace for remanufacture.

Using QI Macros for Excel, it was possible to use PivotTables to analyze and chart ongoing scrap. Control charts showed a stable process producing consistent levels of monthly scrap. Drilling down into the data, Pareto charts showed that one machine out of many was producing most of the scrap. A few hours of root cause analysis with operators of that machine identified simple ways to reduce scrap just by changing the setup and ongoing adjustment process.

Annual savings amounted to over $1,000,000 after only a few hours of analysis.

Million-dollar opportunities lay hidden in data about defects, mistakes, errors, scrap, waste and rework. Using Excel and QI Macros it is possible to mine and find those opportunities—the invisible low-hanging fruit in any company. QI Macros Improvement Project Wizard automates this analysis, creating improvement projects in just minutes.

This analysis works in manufacturing, healthcare, telephony, banking and any industry that tracks waste and rework. Haven’t you waited long enough to find your hidden, low-hanging fruit?

Download a 30-day trial at www.qimacros.com/QualMag2023

Case Study: Connect Any Gage into Any Software

Challenge:

A customer discovered their new Component Engineering TruPosition probes were not compatible with their installed wireless measurement collection system.  They asked MicroRidge for a solution that would allow them to collect measurements wirelessly from the TruPosition and their other installed gage devices with the least disruption to their current data collection process.

Solution:

With 38 years of expertise in designing measurement collection products, MicroRidge created a MobileCollect Wireless solution compatible with the customer’s new TruPosition probes and their installed base of calipers, micrometers, and RS-232 serial output gage devices. This solution is now available to other MobileCollect Wireless customers as a standard product.

The MobileCollect Wireless product offers compatibility with over 70 gage brands and thousands of gage models.  MicroRidge is constantly researching gage devices to expand the list of compatible devices.  Our “connect any gage into any software” philosophy differs from other “single-brand only” wireless system providers in that it allows companies to implement gage devices that best address their specific needs, regardless of the brand or model.  

Our gage connectivity expertise and extensive line of wireless receivers and transmitters allow MobileCollect Wireless to offer data collection solutions not available from other wireless system providers.  The free MicroRidge product demo program will enable companies to evaluate the MobileCollect Wireless products to confirm it provides the required solution before making a financial commitment.