While we are having some signs of economic recovery, the question remains what role the manufacturing industry will play in this recovery and in the future of our economy.

Can we expect to maintain our wealth, growth and global leadership while we continue to outsource growing portions of our manufacturing offshore? A survey conducted by Deloitte (several months ago) sheds some light on the American View on Manufacturing. Here are two slides from the actual survey - “picture is worth thousands words”:

In talking to manufacturers all across the country, we keep hearing a similar message: While business is starting to pick up, the pressure to cut costs and expedite delivery times is stronger than ever. These demands are driving manufacturers to recognize the need for long-lasting changes in how they run their operations. The quest for cost cutting and faster delivery times is not new. It is an ongoing effort that manufacturers have been pursuing since the industrial revolution. What is new is the intensity and pace of change that are needed today in order to keep up with the competition in an age when information and technology are accessible to all with a click of a button.
Taking on these changes in the CMM industry is up to us. We need to be aware that increasing efficiency, reducing waste, and expediting delivery times are moving targets. To remain competitive, we can never rest on our laurels and stop the effort to improve.
It is not a secret that creating an inspection program to have a Coordinate Measuring Machine (CMM) inspecting a manufactured part is a time-consuming activity that can take hours and sometimes days to complete.

Before we “dive” into PAS CMM solution description and how it can help creating programming in minutes rather than hours or days, I would like to be more specific using real life example. How long do you think it takes to “program” the following part for CMM operation, and how long does it take to program the same part for CNC operation?
A CMM expert did it in 16 hours (including GD&T) a CNC expert did it in 5 hours!

Why does it take 3 times more time to program the same part for CMM? Is it more complicated?

Having more than 25 years of aggregated hands-on experience in CAD\CAM and CMM industry, I will share with you my extensive experience and knowledge – it is not. There is nothing in CNC or CMM programming that is easier in one or the other. The two operations are in some cases complicated and present high challenges. If that is the case we still need to address the question about the significant time difference between the programs creation.

There is more than one way to answer this question. Here is one of them: The short answer for the question contains only three key words: standardization, integration and interpretation. Let’s put those three words into one sentence: “The CMM industry is in need for standardization in order to enable solutions that can seamlessly integrate between all CAD systems and CMM machines with a complete and controlled automation and by that, eliminate the needs of manual interpretation of inspection requirements.”

At PAS TECHNOLOGY we overcame the lack of standardization and created the industry's first CAD/CMM solution that seamlessly integrates with any CAD solution, eliminating the manual interpretation of inspection requirements. PAS TECHNOLOGY is helping companies streamline processes and cut up to 95% of programming time and the cost. More importantly, it allows CMM experts to concentrate on their professional skills where they are crucially needed to provide trusted inspection strategy and reporting. Where PAS CMM is installed, CMM experts provide valuable input to the entire engineering and manufacturing processes, CMM departments are no longer considered as an expensive, constantly bottleneck with only “go-no-go” results.
Here are couples of screenshots describing PAS CMM processes:

1. PAS CMM integrated in the CAD system (SolidWorks) automated “ballooning” process

2. CAD model, GD&T and other inspection requirements seamlessly transferred to PAS CMM

3. The inspection requirements interpreted automatically by PAS CMM to a CMM program and reporting

This part is the same part I described at the beginning of the article. This part programmed for CMM inspection in 16 hours with one of the industry known CMM software. This part programmed by PAS CMM with less than 20 minutes (with additional benefits such as Visual Inspection Results on the model directly from the CMM machine, Inspection Planner and more).
You are invited to see a short PAS CMM video movie by clicking on this link.

About PAS Technology

PAS TECHNOLOGY is focused on the quality assurance process of complex parts, one of the most costly steps in the manufacturing value chain. Based on advanced feature recognition and patent-pending algorithms, PAS CMM automates the creation of CMM programs from any CAD file, delivering proven time and cost savings of up to 97%. The PAS CMM solution is used by leading manufacturers worldwide including John Deere, Raytheon, Caterpillar, Lockheed Martin, Elbit Systems, IAI, SPX Precision Components and many others from small to large companies. For more information, visit www.pastechnology.com.