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16 MoldMaking Technology August 2015 Case Study / Inspection/Measurement By Bob Cramblitt The low-slung, elongated, ranch-house-style building on the outskirts of Rutledge, Georgia, (population 780) doesn't look like the headquarters of a high-end manufacturing operation, but looks can deceive. This 35,000-square-foot facility is home to Versatile Mold and Design, which provides tool engineering and manufacturing for companies including Schneider Electric, Eaton Electrical, GE, Siemens and Husqvarna. The company also has an office in Shenzhen, China, that supports offshore work. During the past two years, Versatile Mold and Design has spent nearly $2 million in new cutting, EDM, laser welding and grinding technologies. One of the best investments, says company President Bob Heusser, was a Surveyor Series 3D laser scanner from Laser Design Inc. By speeding inspections, this system has significantly improved turnaround times for new projects. It's also opened the door to new mea- surement applications that have reduced dimensional cor- rections for new tooling. Weeks to Days The Laser Design Surveyor 3D scanner used by Versatile has an accuracy of ±0.010 mm. The system's speed is also particularly critical for the shop—setting up a new part scan takes only a few minutes. Programming is virtually automatic because the system uses part manufacturing information (PMI) data that designers include in the CAD model. This enables virtually anyone to use the system. "The automation removes the need for a 3D scanning specialist," explains Marty Schuster, president of Laser Design. From Bottleneck to Project Accelerator Laser scanning provides new inspection options and a faster alternative to CMM for this engineering and mold manufacturing company. The ability to capture millions of points faster and more accurately, and automatically integrate them into a spreadsheet has turned weeks of inspection into days. With the scan complete, the system's embedded inspection software compares the 3D data to the CAD model and auto- matically extracts all geometric dimensioning and tolerance (GD&T;) data. Along with fast, automated programming, this capability makes laser scanning a faster alternative to a CMM for much of the shop's work. "Our inspection process before was slow," explains Trevor Martin, quality control technician at Versatile. "You had to pick the points manually and put all of the data into an Excel spreadsheet, which can take weeks depending on how many dimensions there are in your part. The Laser Design Surveyor enables us to scan the part automatically and capture hundreds of thousands of points instead of a few dozen. You can select points and it automatically gives the dimensions. With one click of a button, all of our data is exported to an Excel spreadsheet. With a CMM, if you have a four-cavity tool, you have to check each part (cavity) individually. With the 3D laser scanner, you check one cavity and run the automation on the other three cavities, and your inspection is done." The ability to capture millions of points faster and more accurately, and automatically integrate them into a spreadsheet has turned weeks of inspection into days, Martin says. Getting it Right the First Time Versatile's use of the laser scanner goes beyond first-article inspection. The company is also applying the system to inspect sinker EDM electrodes prior to burning any steel. To ensure a perfect ft, Versatile based the design for this camera cover (the CAD model on the top) on 3D scan results of the camera itself (bottom). Image courtesy of Versatile Mold and Design.