ZEI Car Body Solutions: Systematic Quality Aurance

OBERKOCHEN/Germany, 26.04.2016.

In the age of Industry 4.0, measuring and inspection technology is increasingly becoming the steering instrument in production. As a part of this new role, the technology needs to capture and manage quality data more flexibly and quickly at different sites: in the measuring room, at-line and in-line. This is where metrology solutions from ZEISS come into play, especially the ZEISS Car Body Solutions process chain, which will be presented at the Control trade fair in Stuttgart, 26-29 April 2016.

Quality assurance in car body construction is more essential than ever for preventing expensive recalls. Consequently, ZEISS is already seeing greater interest in metrology solutions which can be performed at-line and even in-line. With the new Carl Zeiss Optotechnik GmbH (formerly Steinbichler), ZEISS has expedited its entry into the optical 3D digitization sector. Moreover, ZEISS is optimally positioned in the areas of quality assurance and data networking in car body construction with its ZEISS Car Body Solutions process chain.

"Measuring and inspection technology will be a steering tool in the smart factory because the intelligent factory will only organize itself when quality data from the workpieces are continuously captured parallel to production," says Dr. Kai-Udo, who is responsible for ZEISS Car Body Solutions. Industrial measuring and inspection technology will form the interface between the virtual world, where production processes are automatically planned and simulated, and the real world, where not everything happens according to plan.

Measuring and inspection technology is not just tasked with capturing quality: it must also reduce the data obtained to what is essential, evaluate them and make them available digitally at the right areas of the company. "When it comes to measuring technology, companies need to take different approaches simultaneously. And this is exactly what we want to offer with the ZEISS Car Body Solutions process chain," says Dr. Modrich. With products and software for functioning quality data management, ZEISS offers its customers highly accurate off-line measuring technologies in the measuring room and process-integrated in-line and in-process at-line technologies in the production environment.

Multiple solutions: in-line and at-line

In-line inspection during the production cycle is increasingly important. 100% inspection integrated into production has already been implemented in car body construction. To prevent errors before they occur, inspection data is evaluated in real time and continuously visualized as trends in data sequences. Monitoring which has been integrated into production requires relatively high precision and image resolution from the measuring and inspection technology, even under production conditions and this must all happen at a speed suitable for the production line. Optical sensors on robots, which e.g. automatically inspect car body components, are currently the most common solution.

At-line measuring systems are increasingly being used to supplement in-line measuring systems. With these systems, the entire surface of a part can be digitized and then analyzed flexibly using measuring technology. With these technologies, companies production areas have a measuring assist system which immediately delivers measuring results at-line, thereby saving a detour to the measuring room. With the ZEISS AIBox, ZEISS is introducing a robot-guided optical digitization system which is used directly in the car body construction process chain as an assist system. The ZEISS AIBox is at-line technology which supplements the established systems and technologies in the measuring room and on the production line. ZEISS will also exhibit the ultra-compact ZEISS COMET L3D 2 3D sensor for at-line technology at Control, which uses the latest sensor technology and software for easy and reliable 3D data capture. This gives the user greater scope to perform a multitude of measuring tasks thanks to the unique flexibility of the system.

Off-line in the measuring room

Although more quality data are being captured in-line or at-line, measurements in the measuring room will still be a part of day-to-day operations in the factory of the future. It will not be possible to measure with such high precision in either the production cycle or the production environment for the foreseeable future. Thus performing measurements in the measuring room will remain the norm. This is where coordinate measuring machines from ZEISS raise the bar even higher. "Time does not stand still in the measuring room, either. With more and more multi-sensor measuring machines, the measuring process is becoming increasingly flexible and fast. In the future, metrology providers will need to make all three measuring technologies available and develop them further if they want to offer their customers a complete solution," says Dr. Modrich. ZEISS also consults with its customers on how they can sensibly combine these three approaches.

"Measuring and inspection technology ultimately becomes more efficient when companies use the right technology, at the right amount and for the right purpose," explains Dr. Modrich. "And ZEISS offers the necessary solutions both for using the measuring machines properly and networking the quality data using appropriate software because only this interplay will form the basis for self-regulating production in the factory of the future."

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Measuring and inspection technology for car body construction in the measuring room, at-line and in-line

Press contact:

Dr. Benjamin Viering

Carl Zeiss IMT GmbH

Phone: +49 7364 20-2144

Fax: +49 7364 20-4657

benjamin.viering@zeiss.com

About ZEISS

ZEISS is an internationally leading technology enterprise operating in the optics and optoelectronics industries. T

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