Queen's Award for inspection software

Delcam has received the Queen's Award for Enterprise in the Innovation category in recognition of the continuing innovation in its PowerInspect software.

Delcam has received the Queen's Award for Enterprise in the Innovation category in recognition of the continuing innovation in its PowerInspect software.

The Queen's Awards are the UK's most coveted commercial awards, with only a small percentage of those who enter each year measuring up to the demanding standards required to win an award.

This latest recognition for the company's innovative development and commercialisation strategies follows the receipt of the 2003 Queen's Award for its ArtCAM engraving and routing software.

PowerInspect is Delcam's software for the inspection of prototypes, tooling and production samples against CAD data.

It works with a wide range of inspection devices, including static co-ordinate measuring machines (CMMs), portable inspection arms and optical and laser-based systems.

Inspection reports can be produced from PowerInspect, including pictorial, graphical and tabulated data, either to recognised international standards or in a customer-specified format.

By giving real time results in an easy to understand format, problems can be identified earlier and corrected at lower cost.

Among the leading companies using PowerInspect are Ford, General Motors, Caterpillar and GKN-Westland Helicopters.

The software is also used by the FIA, the body governing Formula One racing, to ensure that cars adhere to its regulations.

Traditionally, inspection was based on comparison of samples against drawings.

More recently, the three-dimensional CAD model has replaced the drawing as the main reference for manufacturing data.

Most design data are now issued to subcontractors as CAD models rather than as drawings.

It is more efficient and reliable to allow inspection directly against the CAD model than against drawings generated from that model.

At the same time, the complexity of components has increased in practically all industries.

For example, today's automotive interiors mainly feature smooth flowing surfaces, instead of the rather boxy shapes of a few years ago.

It is difficult to describe these complex surfaces unambiguously in two-dimensional drawings.

Clearly, any ambiguity in the drawing undermines the reliability of the whole inspection process.

Furthermore, as the complexity of the surfaces increased, the time taken to set up the inspection process grew longer and the number of points increased that had to be recorded to give a comprehensive quality check.

As a specialist in the development of manufacturing software, Delcam could see that many of the customers for its design and machining systems were meeting growing problems when they came to inspect their work.

In many cases, inspection had become a time-consuming bottleneck that was affecting their ability to meet delivery schedules.

Furthermore, the inspection process tended to be complicated, requiring skilled Metrologists both to generate the inspection data and to interpret the resulting reports.

While the prime motive for the development of PowerInspect was to allow inspection against CAD data, the opportunity was also taken to address the problems of inspection speed and complexity.

It was also decided that the software must be independent of the hardware being used.

Much of the other inspection software on the market is linked to particular inspection devices.

Thus, companies using a range of equipment must have staff trained on a variety of software.

In addition, it can be difficult to enforce standard reporting methods and formats from different software.

The initial development of PowerInspect focussed on solving the specific problems of inspecting complex surfaces.

Subsequent releases added the ability to check geometric features, sections and edges, as well as surfaces.

For all types of inspection, PowerInspect offers two key benefits; a fast and simple, interactive method of collecting the data required and a range of levels of reporting.

During the inspection, the CAD model of the part is displayed on the computer screen.

All results are displayed instantly on the model so the user knows immediately that he has measured the required point.

This instant feedback also allows the operator to take additional measurements in areas where the initial results indicate potential problems.

Even though PowerInspect has already proved to be a most successful product for Delcam, it is expected that it will be adopted even more widely in future.

The rise of the "quality culture" has meant that companies can no longer rely on their reputation when quoting for work.

They must also be able to demonstrate the quality of their products in much more formal ways.

Companies supplying the aerospace and medical sectors must meet particularly stringent requirements for documented quality standards.

However, with customers ever more ready to resort to litigation in any dispute, every manufacturing company must pay increasing attention to its quality standards.

In addition, the introduction of more automated machining and assembly operations, often involving robots, means that components must reach a higher level of consistency.

Significant differences between one part and the next cannot be accommodated in these systems, making it even more important that any components that are out of specification are identified and removed from the production line as soon as possible.

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