production metrology

The trend for product individualization results in a demand for small and more flexible production series with a considerable diversity of components. The improvement of manufacturing and assembly flexibility has a direct impact on the control complexity of the manufacturing tasks leading to big challenges for the quality assurance systems. The quality assurance strategy that is nowadays used for mass production is unable to cope with the inspection flexibility needed among small series production. The major challenge faced by a quality assurance system applied to small series production is to guarantee the needed quality level already at the first run (“first time right on time”). This demands a constant adaption of the quality assurance system behavior according to the dynamic manufacturing conditions, which can be achieved by the improvement of cognitive and autonomy aspects of the manufacturing systems. This work introduces the concept of Cognitive Production Metrology as an ...

Metrology supplies valid information about the production. Utilized in control loops metrology often is the enabler to a capable production. Benefits in terms of a contribution to the production’s value added is generally unknown. This paper answers the question how the use of or investments in metrology can be rationally justified - not only on the basis of a cost minimization, but as an assessment of production performance due to measurements. A decision-theoretical model comparing the deployment of metrology with compared to an abdication of measurements enables the necessary quantification of the benefits. Embedding the decision model in quality control loop shows that the feedback of measurement information leads to a considerable process improvement.