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GKS Uses Traditional Measurement Tools for Large Inspection Job
 The Company
The company is a precision machine shop in Genoa, OH whose business includes design and fabrication of industrial and consumer parts. They also build equipment and custom articles.
The Challenge
The machine shop company was awarded a fabrication job with a major auto manufacturer when the original fabricator went bankrupt. The auto manufacturer contacted the machine shop company with a 12-week project timeframe from start to finish. The completed product, a convertible roof for a new auto model, had to arrive at the auto manufacturing plant in Mexico by the end of the 12-week period. However, the auto manufacturer always requires production part approval prior to the first production shipment of product when the part is brand new from a new supplier as it was in this situation.
The machine shop company quickly built the tooling for manufacturing the convertible roof. They then needed to inspect it for accuracy. Error tolerances were extremely low. However, the tooling was too large for their usual inspection equipment to handle. On this extremely short timetable, they decided they had to quickly outsource the inspection process.
 The sales manager at the machine shop company, had used GKS Inspection Services for several years, so he contacted Steve DeRemer, the General Manager of the Michigan office about this pressing job.
The Solution
GKS Inspection Services has been a global provider of dimensional inspection, 3D laser scanning, and terrestrial scanning services since 1981. With over 25 years in the business, GKS metrologists have experience with all kinds of inspection projects, using both laser and traditional measuring methods. Since the tooling that the machine shop company needed measured was very large, the GKS metrologist went onsite to their facility.
Originally, the tolerances for the fixture’s features were ± 0.015mm, which is virtually impossible to attain, and unheard of for this type of tooling build. Once the end customer understood this issue, they agreed to a larger and more reasonable, but still tight tolerance. “This discussion helped everyone to understand the scope and magnitude of the project and opened up the flow of communication with our end customer,” commented the metrologist in charge.
Per their standard inspection procedures, the machine shop company requested contact digitizing with GKS’s portable coordinate measuring machine (PCMM) and touch probe. GKS was onsite the next day with its touch probe and 12-foot Platinum Faro PCMM arm. GKS’ system configuration includes Faro’s CAM2 measurement software and contact probes along with a Laser Design SLP-330 laser scanner and a high-end laptop PC loaded with Geomagic software. The Platinum Faro Arm’s .0005" accuracy betters traditional CMMs, hand tools, and other portable CMMs.
GKS quickly and accurately measured the large convertible top tooling parts at the machine shop company’s site, since the tooling was big and unwieldy. Steve DeRemer, General Manager of GKS Michigan states, “Many of our customers prefer on-site inspection of their parts due to their large size or proprietary nature and we have the capacity to service them in a timely manner.”
The convertible roof assembly fixture had moveable features which needed to be in precise locations. The GKS metrologist inspected 26 critical locations with the PCMM. The machine shop company had provided GKS with the blueprints for the assembly fixture which showed the location of each detail and the fixture’s nominal dimensions. GKS compared the touch probe results to the print nominal values to determine whether all areas of the part were in spec. With Faro’s CAM2 inspection software, an inspection report was quickly generated showing that the majority of the fixture was already within tolerance. It also allowed for real time corrections and re-measurement of the few features that were slightly out. If a detail needed further machining, the location was removed from the fixture and machined; similarly if the detail needed to be shimmed, the shims were added as the inspection progressed. “Our customer, the machine shop company, was able to use the inspection data to quickly determine the locations of the features and assemble the tooling precisely to spec,” commented the GKS metrologist.
The Results
 “GKS’s response time was great. We had no down time,” said the company’s sales manager. “We were up and running very rapidly and got the assembly to its destination on time. Everybody was happy.” The machine shop company shipped the GKS-inspected tooling to the OEM’s manufacturing plant in Mexico on schedule. The parts were made there and then shipped back to the assembly plant in the US.
The machine shop company has regularly used GKS for its large and overflow projects, and often sends their parts to be inspected to GKS' Michigan facility which
is accredited by the A2LA for Mechanical Testing and Calibration. “After we did one of the fixtures at the machine shop location, they were able to dial in their fabrication process to the point of not needing GKS to go onsite. They could ship the fixtures directly to GKS Inspection Services for final inspection,” remarked the GKS metrologist. “That is when I found a renewed respect for just how repeatable and accurate the entire machining process can be. I truly enjoy working with the machine shop’s team on the various projects. We at GKS have built a great working relationship.”
About GKS
GKS Inspection Services has been a leading provider of dimensional inspection, 3D laser scanning and terrestrial scanning services for over 25 years. The company’s Plymouth, MI lab (Detroit metro area) is accredited by the A2LA for Mechanical Testing and Calibration and features numerous CMMs, vision systems, 3D laser scanners, surface analyzers and other inspection equipment. GKS also has U.S. offices in Minneapolis and Seattle and international locations in India, Korea, China, Taiwan, and the Netherlands. The company’s metrologists and engineers are experienced in the automotive, defense, electronics and many other manufacturing industries.
More Information
For additional information about how GKS
Inspection Services can improve your manufactured product, save you
money and decrease your development time, call Steve DeRemer at
734-357-5229 or send email to
measure@gks.com
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