Aggressive Tool & Die, inc. abandons its CMM (too slow) more and more often in favor of a Kreon measuring arm

During the deep-draw process, a sheet is put under pressure and when it is released from the tooling, it relaxes: this is called spring back. While this deformation is determined and compensated in the tool design stage, a full scan of the part makes it possible to check the accuracy of the compensation.

In addition to verifying the overall deformation of the part, the arm also allows other checks to be made, such as measuring position angles and diameters. GD&T specifications are very common in the automotive sector, and in the Polyworks software, there are automatically integrated into the CAD import. This greatly simplifies part inspection.

When excessive deviations occur, they can be corrected via manual adjustments. Reverse engineering is then performed on all the modified parts to keep the tooling CAD file up-to-date.

Having observed numerous shortcomings on the CMM – slowness, incomplete surface acquisition with the probe, fixed machine impossible to move near large tooling – Aggressive Tool & Die, Inc. choose to acquire a large measuring arm with a working volume of 3.5m. The freedom of movement offered by this arm allows it to move around the parts, scanning even the areas hardest to reach. This makes large parts and dies easy to inspect.

Deep-draw work involves several operations (cutting, bending, drilling, punching), particularly on parts from progressive dies (see image below). Each step of the process must be mastered in order to ensure parts of perfect quality.