Measuring the Big Kiss: using equipment effectively is key to speeding up vehicle production.

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You said it's a what?" shouted the Sleuth incredulously into his speakerphone.

"A CCISS, which stands for counter counterinsurgency surveillance system. But we just call it The Big Kiss," said the voice at the other end of the line.

The voice belonged to Tommy Bronson, part validation team leader for the CCISS Project. The Big Kiss was a top-secret surveillance vehicle that traveled both through the air and on land and, for all the Sleuth knew, under water. Bronson's group was tasked with insuring that all the parts and assemblies supplied for this project met the government's stringent specifications.

Bronson told the Sleuth that the Big Kiss had tens of thousands of parts, components and subassemblies, and they were all important. The project's mission was to manufacture and deliver three prototype Big Kisses by 2014.

The validation team, which consisted of Bronson and eight others, was working day and night to keep pace with this mind-boggling inspection workload. In rare cases, Bronson also had some leeway to farm out some of the inspection work to contract inspection shops, but that was an exception.

"Seems like you've got it under control, Tommy," said Sleuth. "Congratulations to you."

"Not at all," Bronson shot back. "They've just pushed the delivery date up to 2011 and we're at the end of our rope. They did put some extra money in the budget for improving our measurement systems, but there is nothing there for more personnel. So that's why we need your help."

Sleuth digs in

The next afternoon, after a long flight and a seemingly endless drive through traffic at a major industrial center in another part of the country, Sleuth was escorted into the bowels of the CCISS Project Metrology Lab. Bronson led him on a tour of his turf, and Sleuth was immediately impressed with the quality and quantity of equipment at the team's disposal.

There were five CMMS, including an ultra-precision measurement system and a gantry for measuring large components; a vision and multi-sensor measurement system; a portable arm measuring device; the usual surface plate stuff; and a unique arm-type CMM that can be used on a surface plate or right on a CNC machine bed. Bronson told Sleuth that most of the CNC machines had spindle probes.

"You've got some great equipment in your lab," said the Sleuth. "But I also notice that half of it isn't being used at the moment. What's that all about?"

"Scheduling of manpower is a big part of the problem. We tend to have guys who are experts in the various types of measurement systems. We'd like to do more cross-training, but we don't have a lot of time for that. For example, the guy who is our vision and multi-sensor system expert is at an on-site part run-off today. So he can't be here running or programming parts that need to be inspected on either of those systems," Bronson said.

"In a pinch, I can fill in for him. But I can't do nearly as much with those systems as he can, and I am very slow at programming them. It's the same situation with the portable arms."

Bronson said he spends a lot of time going over the design criteria with the supervising engineers for the various Big Kiss parts and assemblies.

"Then I spend even more time handing off the marked-up drawings to various members who will create measurement programs depending on their particular skills," he noted.

"And now, I'm sorry to say, I don't have any more time for you today. You can talk to more of the team and I can see you for an hour first thing tomorrow. The big question I want you to think about is, 'What can we do to double our measurement productivity with our current staff?' That should be no sweat for a famous metrology detective like you."

Sleuth spent the rest of the afternoon talking to the various Big Kiss Validation Team members. He was impressed with their devotion to their job and depth of measurement knowledge. For example, they all seemed to be well versed in CMM programming and operation. Then he returned to his hotel and drank coffee well into the night as he tried to make sense of his notes by drawing page after page of flow diagrams on an oversized pad of paper.

The next morning, Bronson got right to the point.

"So can we increase our Validation Team productivity by 100 percent?" he asked with more than a trace of apprehension.

"I believe it is possible," Sleuth replied.

Bronson couldn't believe his ears.

"That's right," Sleuth continued. "You have excellent equipment, a talented staff, and access to world-class job shops. I believe we can look at your part validation requirements from an Enterprise Metrology perspective and find a way to solve your problem. Here are a few items to begin with:

How to get control

"Keep your staffers busy close to home. Do source inspections via the web by exchanging programs and data, not sending people to the manufacturing sites.

"Use common operating and programming software for CMMs, measuring arms, vision and multi-sensor systems and the like. That way you won't need measurement system specialists. You will have everybody cross-trained and more of your equipment will be active at any one time.

"If you want your staffers to be specialists, have them specialize in component types so they can be of greater assistance to the design engineers.

"To the greatest extent possible, automate all your inspection processes. Enter design intent electronically during design reviews. There's software for that. Those design intent files when attached to your CAD files can reduce programming time by as much as 80 percent. Do your computer automated measurement system programming off-line so you can keep your equipment in continuous operation.

"Try to use parametric programming, so that when design changes come in, as they surely will, all you need to do is alter values in a table to make an entirely new measurement program. Do this especially when you use a contract inspection shop. Make sure your contract inspection shops program parametrically as well. The program should be part of the deliverable because you may be able to use it over and over again to measure similar items.

"Finally, rely more heavily on your suppliers to validate the parts they make for you. If they are using the same measurement approaches and software, you can easily do apples-to-apples random checks in the lab to insure your Enterprise Metrology System is hitting on all cylinders.

"Store all the measurement data in a common database that can be readily operated on to create reports as needed. That way none of you will have to sacrifice hours and days creating ad hoe reports," Sleuth concluded.

Bronson's eyes had grown wider and wider as Sleuth reeled off his list.

"Is that all?" he asked sarcastically.

"It's a short list, I know," said the Sleuth with a bit of a yawn. "But it will take you awhile to put it into practice. And when you do, I think you will be a lot closer to having your problem under control."

EM Sleuth is sponsored by Wilcox Associates Inc. (www. pcdmis-ems.com), part of the Hexagon Metrology Group and makers of PC-DMIS measurement software.

Contributors to this article include Steve Logee, business development manager, Wilcox Associates, steve.logee@ HexagonMetrology.com; Rob Fabiano, Sleuth illustrator, rfabiano1@cox.net, and Joel Cassola, writer, jocas@cox.net