Sports car gets vigorous checks

Quality control over sports car launched last year includes measuring 400 points inside and outside every body shell using a pair of co-ordinate measuring machines integrated into the production line.

At Aston Martin's Gaydon factory, quality control over the Vantage sports car launched last year includes measuring about 400 points inside and outside every body shell.

To perform the 100% inspection, two LK co-ordinate measuring machines (CMMs) have been integrated into the Vantage production line.

The process is in contrast to that used for the DB9 model, whereby sample body shells are inspected off-line in a room next to the production area using two similar CMMs from LK, which was acquired by Metris in January 2006.

The Vantage body is based on Aston Martin's VH architecture, which is made entirely at Gaydon.

At the end of the line, the body moves into the measuring cell, where it is fixtured within the 6000 by 3000 by 2500mm working volume of the twin LK LY-90S CMMs.

A tracking system indentifies the vehicle type, that is whether it is a left- or right-hand drive coupe.

The appropriate program is then called up within the control software, Camio Studio 4.2, and simultaneous, mirror-image inspection cycles either side of the car are launched automatically.

Results are accurate to better than 10um over the length of the car.

Recorded points captured by the touch trigger probes are stored automatically on the server, which generates reports that include statistical process control (SPC) trend data on the body production process.

Such reports are prepared at smaller manufacturing customers using similar functionality within Camio.

At Aston Martin, metrology staff use this capability locally to display reports on-screen to assist day-to-day management of the inspection cell.

Of the 400 locations measured, about 10% are key tooling points that define how the car is put together.

These points are extracted and subjected to SPC within Camio to provide direct feedback on the shop floor, providing an early warning if the vehicle body is drifting out of tolerance.

An additional feature of Camio is its ability to read Aston Martin's I-Deas CAD files, via Iges, which are then used to create measuring programs off-line directly from the electronic models.

It is therefore a simple matter for alterations to be made to existing measuring programs to take account of design changes or to prepare programs for inspecting future car models.

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