Quality Control & Validation

CAD Model Validation

Required by most aerospace and defense OEMs and rapidly become a staple of all companies designing complex products, CAD model validation facilitates the error-free exchange of data between unlike CAD systems, allows for PMI (product manufacturing information) to be used in paperless design to manufacturing environments, and enables ECOs and ECNs to be quickly and accurately documented and executed.

Computer Aided Inspection

The inspection of complex parts and products is most efficiently and cost-effectively done through the use of coordinate measuring machines and laser measuring devices.  In cases where parts are large scale, the best tools are portable CMMs and laser measuring devices.  In other cases automated inspection can be done with motorized and programmable CMMs.  In all of these cases, specialized software tools and methods can drastically cut the cost and time needed to generate the data, images and programs needed.

Reverse Engineering

Again, through the use of portable CMMs and laser measuring devices, the ability to capture 3D data and reverse engineer parts and products, or design new products that fit to existing products is greatly enhanced by the use of the latest engineering software technologies developed for these tasks.

Kubotek Validation Tool & ECO Manager

Kubotek Validation Tool™ allows manufacturers and suppliers alike to manage both intended and unintended changes in CAD file data, providing the highest confidence prior to manufacture.

Kubotek's "Pattern Recognition" technology allows for the identification of each surface pattern and matches it to the corresponding surface pattern on the other model - it's simple...anything not matched is a difference. Validation Tool provides the industry's only geometry-based CAD model validation, providing 100% accurate comparison of CAD part & assembly data. Kubotek invented geometry-based comparision, which is superior to the out-dated points-based method which can provide inaccurate results.

Use Kubotek Validation tool to:

• Detect and Document Design Changes
• Detect Translation Changes
• Validate Models for Long Term Archiving (LOTAR)
• Provide Validation for CAD Model migration

ECO Manager

ECO Manager provides a robust graphical interface to identify, organize and communicate the impact of an engineering change.

Change management is an important process because it can deliver vast benefits by increasing quality and reducing costs, but also may create enormous problems by disrupting internal processes. Due to the increase in global competition, the process for managing engineering changes effectively has become imperative to maintaining profitability and market share. Industry standard change management processes used today are cumbersome and burdened with quality risks and high costs due to their manual nature.

ECO Manager is an easy to use toolset specifically designed to manage the engineering change process. The product will quickly and accurately identify any revisions between the file sets of two components or assemblies. ECO Manager then automatically creates a graphical change report, in electronic or paper format, to share with anyone and everyone involved in the design-to-manufacture supply chain. ECO Manager provides a streamlined, electronic process to reduce risks and increase profitability.

ECO Manager is perfect for:

• Engineering Change Management
• Phase Gate Design Process
• Design Quality Check
• Configuration Management
• Supplier Management

Learn More

NX CMM Inspection Programming

NX CMM Inspection Programming is an offline programming application that helps you program faster and more accurately by putting you within the context of a 3D solid model environment including the CMM machine, probing equipment and the part. Use this application to reduce programming time, visually validate CMM programs, free up expensive CMM machine resources, and respond to design changes rapidly.

Advanced Automated Programming

Reduce inspection programming time by as much as 80% by using Product and Manufacturing Information (PMI), including GD&T and 3D annotation, that's presented intuitively on the CAD model to automatically generate inspection programs.

Create highly accurate inspection programs that account for all feature and tolerance requirements by programming directly on the CAD model.

Production-Ready Output

Ensure inspection programs are collision-free by validating with 3D CMM simulation, and verify that programs match the intended measurement strategy.

Generate postprocessed output, including the DMIS standard and machine-specific formats.

Work in the Context of an Integrated Solution

Rapidly update inspection programs to design and manufacturing changes by using the associativity between NX CAD, CAM and CMM applications.

Use Teamcenter to manage your inspection data and processes, and ensure that you are always working with the correct file version.

Easy to Deploy and Use

Ramp-up to productivity faster and reduce training costs by using the context-based inspection programming environment and on-line workflow tutorials.

Minimize software and deployment costs by adding NX Inspection Programming to your existing Siemens PLM Software infrastructure.

Learn More

Build!IT Inspection & Reverse Engineering

Build!IT Desktop is a CAD-to-part inspection software that enables quick and easy dimensional verification of manufactured parts and assemblies. Build!IT's advanced analysis and reporting capabilities combine measurement data from multiple sources to produce detailed graphical and textual reports that are used to quickly identify manufacturing and production trends.

Features:

CAD-to-Part Graphical Inspection

• Surface and curve deviation plotting with tolerance-based or rainbow color scales
• Graphical reports with user-defined call-outs or tabular reports
• Automatic probe radius compensation

Geometry/Feature Evaluation

• Geometry-based feature inspection with real-time deviation feedback
• Conventional dimensional-tolerance inspection
• Analysis tools for feature fitting to point clouds

Model-based GD&T Inspection

• Model-based GD&T inspection with support for MEA, DML, and AIMS import/export
• Color-coded tolerance call-outs indicate pass-fail conditions on the display
• Use predefined measurement plans or measure closest feature to the probe

Reporting and Annotation

• Customizable tabular and graphical reports in PDF and Excel formats
• Measure distances, angles and deviations directly on the model
• Graphical call-outs for points, curves and surface deviation, distances and angles
• Device alignment reports
• Geometry fit and comparison to nominal report
• GD&T reporting with evaluation of tolerances

Archive Measurement Projects

• Measurement data and details are all recorded in a single database
• Fully traceable measurement processes
• Retrieve inspection projects years later to reconstruct and understand previous work

Learn More

DISCUS First Article Inspection

DISCUS software automates the creation of first article inspection documention.  Typical implements have resulted in up to and 80% reduction in the time required to generated FAI documention.  Further, DISCUS can generate documentation in multiple customized formats allowing you to easily comply with your customer's specific and/or customer requirements.

To further enhance the capabilities of DISCUS the following additional modules are available:

• DISCUS Basic – The foundation module for managing the TDP and identifying characteristics and requirements from 2D drawings and specs.
• DISCUS OCR – Use Optical Character Recognition to help extract characteristics from drawing images and specification documents.
• DISCUS Results – Enter actual result values for the characteristics and have the system automatically validate compliance.
• DISCUS CMM – Import results from CMM Reports and incorporate the values into DISCUS Results and inspection reports.
• DISCUS Planner – Manage characteristics by specific operation including the creation of process illustrations and work instructions.
• DISCUS 3D – Interrogate the native 3D CAD model (CATIA, Pro/E, NX) and annotations to automatically identify characteristics and illustrations.
• DISCUS Design – Evaluate design-for-manufacturing by exploring features and characteristics versus producibility rules.

Learn More

Informational Events