Article appearing in Dimensions and Quality Magazine in United States and Europe.

  .                        By Jeff Larkin, Metrology Services, PMI

"TRACKING" SOLUTIONS TO TODAY'S NEEDS WITH TOMORROW'S TECHNOLOGY…

   There is an ever-increasing need for industry today to be more accurate, more precise, and faster than ever before, just to keep up. This often requires better equipment and methods than were satisfactory in the past. Many companies that have not opted to keep pace with our changing world have often found themselves out in a cold and desolate market, watching the competition pass them by, and taking their clientele along with them. To many it may seem that it is hopeless or to difficult to stay ahead of the game, but consider the cost of falling too far behind and maybe even completely out of the race! The truth is that it takes more effort to swim against the current than it does to build a boat.

   With these rapidly changing needs of production and repair in today's high-tech world, it's reassuring to know that there are solutions to the complex issues and ever more demanding needs of business today. The Laser Tracker is one of these solutions. It allows us to look at the real world with digital accuracy, virtual nominal perfection, and powerful simplicity. When you need to save time, overcome physical measuring impossibilities, go from "looking good on paper" to reality, or you need to digitize a real object into the virtual world, the Tracker will bridge the gap.

• Machine tool and process equipment alignments, calibration, diagnosis, wear trending, and geometry.
  
• Complex surface analysis of 3-dimensional objects. Comparisons to digital cad models, or creation of cad models from surface data. (Reverse engineering)
  
• Tooling layout, assembly, and diagnosis. (Multi-frame vantage comparisons)
  
• Multiple set-up machining of single or multiple parts.
  
• Collation of data taken from different positions, temperatures, and time-span to establish trending or conditional changes in position, size, alignment, or wear. Hot/cold, loaded/unloaded alignment condition information, soft foot/structural integrity checks in real time.
  
• Align equipment to gravity vector (level) with extreme accuracy.
  
• Eliminates other less accurate and more time consuming ways of large part inspection and alignment.
  
• Unlimited size measuring capability, using strategic relocation techniques. (Portability)
  
• Overcomes previous physical measurement, and engineering barriers. Do things that were previously impossible.

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