Make It Smarter

Industry 4.0 is on everyone’s lips in manufacturing right now, but with that buzz comes a fair amount of intimidation. Some of the bigger players are already rolling with fully autonomous setups and industrial Internet of Things devices. What about smaller manufacturers, though? For them, Scott Mahrle said, a perfect first step can be to explore automated machine tool feedback.

CMMs, or coordinate measurement machines, are crucial for improving quality assurance and inspection capacity within aerospace, power and energy, and heavy industry. Milan Kocic, North American Director of Business Development for Service and Support at Hexagon, spoke about the need for holistic support of CMMs within these spaces. Why are CMMs such a sought-after piece of equipment and useful to so many industries?

Never before have businesses been able to collect so much information about so many components of their operations. Yet, what good is data if you don’t know how to leverage it and utilize it? Steve Starner, Vice President of Integrated Factory Solutions at Hexagon, said it’s easy for departments or even companies to have too insular a view instead of drawing on how others are utilizing the information they’re gathering. “People today often look for improvements, but those improvements are often within the typical ‘silo’ of a company, so that means within engineering or within manufacturing or within quality,” he said. “I think a lot of companies can benefit by capturing and analyzing data that streams through those kind of walls of the different departments within a company. We need to think about how data in engineering can help us in manufacturing and vice versa.” There also can be a tendency to get to focused on one process, but Hexagon looks at the big picture to understand what metrics companies are trying to hit and what improvements can be made. Starner remembers working with an aerospace company that was looking for a metrology solution. Upon arrival, however, the team realized there was a bigger inefficiency they could fix. “There was a manual drilling operation that was very labor intensive, very tooling intensive and prone to mistakes. As a matter of fact, that one area is what created more of their scrap than any other single process,” Starner said. “So, we changed direction on what we were focusing on away from just the metrology aspect to this area that looked a lot more fruitful from a return on investment point of view.” While automation was difficult, Hexagon made it fit within the company’s needs and turned a $600,000 investment with a return of over two years to a $1.5 million investment with a nine-month return. “I think we achieved, for them, something much greater than they initially started,” Starner said.

Measure twice, cut once. It’s an old-school axiom, but it’s no less true now than when we learned it making our first cuts in Boy Scouts or in the shop with grandpa. Mike Blake has been making sure machines are measuring correctly for more than a decade in his current role and has been focused on service and quality for more than two decades. He knows the importance of not only taking care while measuring but taking care of the tools that do the measuring. “All of our clients are measuring parts. They’re making parts and measuring parts. You have to be sure your equipment is measuring accurately. Otherwise, you’ll be putting out bad parts,” said Blake, the North American Portable Service Manager and Portable Quality Manager at the Hexagon Detroit Solution Center. “The best way to do it is to it is to do it on a regular basis (and) do interim checks between calibrations to ensure your equipment is measuring accurately.” Blake pointed out that, because of a new regulation, he’s no longer able to recommend a specific interval between calibrations, with clients using their equipment less frequently not needing to send their instrument in every year and others needing to make sure they’re compliant more often. No matter how frequently an instrument needs servicing or calibration, no one wants to be without a tool for a significant amount of time. That’s why Hexagon does everything it can to reduce wait time. “We try to make the process from start to finish as streamlined as possible, so we took out anything extra that would delay the time,” Blake said. After emailing Hexagon, clients are typically getting a response within minutes, not hours or days. If a client has an HMA, the process is even quicker, with the client simply requesting service, getting an RMA and then sending in the item. Once the job is done, it’s shipped back on Hexagon’s dime, making sure clients can spend more time measuring and doing the job right and less time tuning up instruments.

Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence is hiring a Applications Engineer based in their Nashville, TN Facility. As the Applications Engineer, you will provide technical and sales support for all the applications of Hexagon products encompassing metrology, demonstration, functionality, and performance. In addition, you will be responsible for quoting and managing contract programming tasks and performing product training. For the full job description, visit MarketScale.com/careers Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence helps industrial manufacturers develop the disruptive technologies of today and the life-changing products of tomorrow. Hexagon gives you the opportunity to work with some of the brightest engineers in the field, as well as the ability to enjoy the amazing city of Nashville, TN. From hard work to hard play, Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence gives you the best of both worlds. If you or someone you know sound like a good fit for this role, you can apply at Presco.com or Marketscale.com/careers

This interview originally aired on MarketScales Software & Technology Podcast. You can have all the data in the world but if you cant measure the results properly your company will be left behind. David Hill explains how Hexagon is unlocking the secrets of metrology (the science of measurement) and helping to provide a blueprint for successful data optimization. Hexagon is a leader known for “developing measuring protocols, we certainly have a very large portfolio when it comes to our measurement solutions.” Hill is very proud that the Hexagon reach goes far beyond the parent company. “Most people would be surprised at the number of recognizable companies under the Hexagon logo," he said. Companies would be wise to follow the same path as Hexagon. Many are now concentrating efforts to implement Smart Factories and Industry 4.0. But exactly what does that mean? Industry 4.0 means a lot of different things to different people. Hill states that Industry 4.0 is “making our factories smarter by using sensors or using the data that we’ve gathered to optimize the processes instead of in the past merely collecting and storing the information. Now we are actually applying that information, sharing and making it accessible.” Another area where metrology is making a huge impact is in Automation. “It makes sense, it’s not an R & D project anymore, it’s taking best in class technology and applying them in a fashion useable throughout the organization," he said. Industry 4.0 is everywhere in the process and throughout manufacturing, “it’s really just what information is important to you and how do we make it accessible.”

This interview originally aired on MarketScales Industrial IoT Podcast. There can sometimes be a misconception that because a solution is “scalable” that it is simple to scale either up or down to fit the need. That’s not necessarily true. On the other hand, sometimes a simple solution can reveal extra benefits that were unintended. How are we seeing this idea of focused solutions impact the Industrial IoT industry and the relationships between companies and clients? On today’s podcast, host Sean Heath had a chat with the Director for PROXI, the Global Product Strategy and Design Group for Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence, Milan Kocic. They discussed the rapidly growing importance of education in Industrial IoT, the challenges of separating a “trend” from “hype,” and the crucial role customers play in helping determine the actual IoT problem they want to solve. “There’s this expression that I saw that says ‘the next big thing will be a lot of little things.’ I kind of subscribe to that piece that a lot of these companies we tend to do in manufacturing have a lot of little problems,” Kocic said. “If you help them fix a lot of little problems, inevitably, you will help them fix bigger problems.”

This interview originally aired on MarketScales AEC Podcast. The average aircraft can be constructed from over 100,000 individual parts and they all need to be manufactured to very specific tolerances. This requires not only incredible data-driven systems to make and distribute these parts, but there’s a requisite need to maximize efficiency of the processes. Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence has built a reputation for precision in all of its solutions. On today’s podcast, our host spoke with the Director of Business Development for the Aerospace division of Hexagon, Steve Starner. They discussed how efficiency has become critical in the industry as margins tighten, a simpler way for companies to implement robotics on their lines, how new materials are changing the manufacturing process, and how the ever-shrinking supply of highly-skilled technicians in the industry is driving the development of automation. “It is about cost, but I think, maybe, in a bigger way it’s about schedules. So, when you think about an aircraft, there are hundreds of thousands of pieces that come together to make a few big components that come together to make an aircraft and all these things have to meet up at the right time, at the right place,” Starner said. “A lot of it is about meeting a schedule.”

This interview originally aired on MarketScales Software & Technology Podcast. With technology continuing to bridge gaps in communication and data, our access to information is as wide as it is deep. Bridget Benedetti, Director of Marketing & Customer Experience for Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence, shows us how software, from the user experience to the data it analyzes, is more connected than ever before. She also reminds us of the importance of face-to-face connectivity and how it can spark new ideas and new missions for innovators.