Manufacturers today are under increased pressure to increase throughput, deliver just-in-time delivery schedules, and get them to market faster, all while dramatically minimizing costs. When bottlenecks occur on the CMM, inspection procedures extend cycle times and ultimately increase non-value added quality costs. The speed and efficiency of CMM are therefore essential.
As already mentioned, bottlenecks on CMM are often due to the huge volume of work that has to be done by a limited number of qualified metrologists. CMM programming times also lengthen inspections considerably, because the CMM must be configured for each type of component or subassembly to be evaluated.
Conventional CMMs with probes are slow and not suitable for effectively measuring complex shapes. Other CMMs, with sensors, tend to speed up inspection processes; however, they still need to be used by experts.
Manufacturers are therefore increasingly looking for inspection technologies, such as innovative optical CMMs, that can keep up with the fast pace demanded by demanding production environments and stringent quality assurance and quality control standards.