After securing the support of the management team, employees at Schubert Fertigungstechnik launched a pilot project. Together with software manufacturer Blum-Novotest and equipment manufacturer Fanuc, they integrated the FormControl X digital tool into their production lines. They were well aware that such an undertaking would not work perfectly right away and might require a fair amount of development work. However, everyone involved was highly motivated to network the software with the Robodrill systems in a way that would enable fully automated quality control. And they succeeded. All components are now continuously measured and assessed while machining is in progress.

>> From manual to fully automated – a huge leap that notably speeds up quality control.

A simple traffic-light system on a laptop now shows whether all measured values are still within the tolerance range. As soon as a measurement starts to drift – moving from the standard value towards the edge of the tolerance range – it becomes visible in the analysis, allowing the machine operator to intervene immediately. In the days of manual checks performed after the production line stage, faults were often only detected once a whole batch of defective parts had already been produced. Now, all dimensions with tolerances of less than a tenth of a millimetre are measured automatically, as are form and position tolerances, which are often interdependent in the machining process. “The software takes measurement tasks off my plate,” says Markus Maier, “which means that I can concentrate more on my actual work. It also makes working on the machine less stressful, because we always know where we stand in terms of quality.”