QUALITY & METROLOGY HEXAGON’S AUTONOMOUS OPERATION & SMART FACTORY FUTURE
to have 100% con dence in the
measurement results reported by their
CMMs, even when the machine is operating
unattended, freeing up their valuable time.”
Toole went on to describe existing product
SFx Asset Management, which combines
multiple sets of data. “Pulse is great for
understanding what’s happening to a single
CMM. Hexagon’s SFx Asset Management
provides a dashboard to gather and act upon
all your metrology assets, anywhere in the
world. SFx Asset Management is an industry
4.0-ready solution that provides
manufacturers with easy and intuitive access
to real-time information about the health and
performance status of their machines,
resulting in higher productivity.”
Bene ts of the software are given as:
identifying spare measurement capacity;
anticipation of problems before they occur;
and pre-empting machine maintenance
requirements. Importantly, users receive only
the data that is relevant to their speci c role.
And SFx Asset Management can be accessed
anywhere in the world, of course.
The second product is an update on the
current CMM New Jog Box (NJB). A seemingly
simple element in the scheme of things, HMI
has worked with long-time design specialist
Octo to come up with “a brand-new human
machine control system”. The existing jog box
resulted from a similar extensive user
consultation and design process but
employed no new components. Following a
similar path, the new development is
described as “the revolutionary next step in
CMM interaction”.
Justin Sirotin, president of Octo explained:
“Starting with a foundation of hours of
research, customer conversations and
internal surveys, we built over 50 prototypes.
Once we settled on a set of leading
candidates, we invited internal stakeholders
and customers to participate in the review
process. Fast forward a few months and we
took re ned prototypes into the eld and
spent weeks travelling to customer sites to
validate the concepts and understand its
weak points, feedback on overall performance
attributes, ergonomics and the software
experience were all collected.
“The nice thing about doing this kind of
research is that the customer is the ultimate
source of truth. They’ll be brutally honest and
one has to be ready to accept that something
we thought was super cool actually isn’t and
be ready to adapt and change. We executed
several of these sessions during the
development cycle and used the feedback to
change the design. For example, a shift from
a single joystick to dual joystick movement
and placement of buttons to better match
NJB and additions to the user experience on
screen and other critical attributes.”
The resulting Digital Control Centre (DCC)
comes in both wireless and wired
con guration. It includes all the functionality
of NJB and has a streamlined integration of
PC Demis on its window-based touchscreen,
allowing minimal interaction with the host PC
and giving users freedom of operation around
the measurement system. DCC carries over
the familiar elements from NJB, supporting
minimal training.
Features of DCC include:
opening and closure of
existing routines;
attachment of images to
routines for easier
identi cation; build
favourites lists for most
frequently used routines;
notes for the next user; and
reports to quickly get an
overview of the inspected
part. More features will be
added in the future.
The next product sets
Tempo provides CMM automation,
boosting both labour effi ciency and CMM utilisation
out to tackle xture
placement and part alignment challenges,
cited by 43% of surveyed users as one of the
most challenging aspects. Called EYE-D, this
allows a part to be simply placed on the CMM
workbed, employing a plate having a hole grid
into which are located some alignment pegs,
and then left, with identi cation, alignment
and measurement undertaken automatically
and unmanned. Again, SFx Asset
Management software provides alerts when
measurement is completed. EYE-D sits within
Inspect, a simpli ed shop oor interface
tailored for operators, with a focus on
simplicity and ease of use. This supports
running pre-created measurement routines,
viewing reports and automatically storing
them, and giving a clear go/no-go indicator.
It does not replace PC PC Demis for routine
creation.
The nal product, Tempo, brings
automation to CMM measurement.
This comprises a mobile work magazine
combined with a collaborative robot and
system control software. Explained Jonathan
O’Hare, product manager, automation:
“We found in our research that most CMM
operators spend more than half the time in
front of the CMM. This is a huge loss in time
that operators can spend on other value
added work, such as reviewing measurement
data, which can be done remotely, and also
tend to other matters that are directly linked
to the production of the product.
“Next, Tempo improves the utilisation of
the CMM, because we able to utilise the
CMM during times or shifts when operators
aren’t actually available.”
Tempo has three areas of application.
First, high volume/low mix, where the drawer
storage system can hold many parts to
support extended unmanned measurement.
The next two environments involve a higher
mix production, which means that there’s a
greater variety of parts and greater
changeover requirement between jobs.
In both, Tempo provides additional savings by
having the system conduct part changeover.
Labour ef ciency bene ts of up to 60% are
claimed.
Operators can control the system with just
a few minutes of training, allowing high labour
exibility. And HMI’s Q-Das software’s
Dynamic Inspection can be employed
alongside Tempo, analysing data generated
by the measurement process to automatically
recognise features in the program that will
remain optimal throughout the run. This can
identify the component features that should
be prioritised during the measurement
routine, optimising throughput.
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