NOTABLE
When you're doing production prototype work for Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), you've (1) got to be
good and (2) you've got to be able to prove it. Which is what Redditch, U.K.-based Birmingham
Prototypes discovered when it began to supply JLR with stampings and brackets a few years back.
According to Mick Adams, managing director of Birmingham Prototypes, JLR wanted both
frst article inspection and production part approval process (PPAP) documentation. Detail on com-
ponent accuracy and repeatabil-
ity required was much more
than had been the case with
other customers.
Doing the tasks with a manual
CMM and Microsoft Offce appli-
cations was taking a considerable
amount of time, as much as a day
for a single report.
Clearly, something had to
be done, so they installed a
ceramic bridge CMM, a model
LK V 15.10.8, from Nikon
Metrology ( nikonmetrology.
com ). The unit is equipped with
an LC15Dx laser scanner, which
is the default tool for measuring
the components. When there
are tight tolerances—or sometimes when doing initial part setup on the CMM—a touch probe
is selected from the stylus changer on the CMM with a Renishaw PH10M motorized indexing
head. While most of the drawing tolerances on the stampings are fairly open—±0.25 mm on
surfaces and ±1 mm on trim edges—hole positions are measured to within tens of microns, which
is readily accommodated by the LK CMM.
The machine uses multi-sensor CAMIO V8 software, which produces DMIS programs for both
laser scanning and touch probing. Nikon Metrology Focus 10 software manages the point clouds
acquired during laser scanning—and know that a prototype aluminum engine bay mounting plate
for a Jaguar car is on the order of seven- to eight-million points, so there is a considerable amount
of managing. The Focus 10 software allows comparison of the CAD model and the part
Laser scanning an automotive stamping at Birmingham
Prototypes with a LC15Dx laser scanning head.
Birmingham
Prototypes quality
manager Bob
Rose using a
Nikon Metrology
MCAx measuring
arm with a
hand-held laser
scanner.
Laser Scanning for Improved Prototyping
14
GEAR