But what will MEDink Think?

“Don’t get me wrong, Mr. Sleuth” said O’Toole conspiratorially. “I’m happy with my partner, but honestly,” he confided, “sometimes I think he is trying to give me an ulcer with some of the jobs he signs us up for.”

Just then, Dyer breezed into O’Toole’s office. A rather tall heavy-set man, he’s a sharp contrast to the lean and gaunt-faced O’Toole.

“Hey Sleuth,” he greeted me, hand extended, “it’s good to see you. We are on the verge of forging a relationship making O’Toole & Dyer a 21st Century Tool & Die shop and he wants to back out. Can you help us out?”

“So what seems to be the problem?” asked Sleuth.

“Medical Devices, that’s what,” O’Toole answered. “Small, finicky, high-precision tooling and parts that have to be made at a moment’s notice in low volume with no guarantee of repeat orders.”

“See what a worry wart he is?” said Dyer through a not-so-convincing grin. “I’ve been cozying up to the Manufacturing Manager at MEDink (that’s what we call Medical Devices Inc.) for three years.  We’ve always done a great job and now he’s willing to evaluate us as an inner circle-manufacturing partner. We have everything they need, great CAD/CAM and CNC equipment and a hardworking staff with lots of skills. We couldn’t be better equipped.”

“I’m not worried about making their stuff,” O’Toole shot back. “What I am worried about is satisfying their specifications. We’ll need different measurement equipment and training to do it. And if we don’t use the same systems they use in MEDink’s gazillion dollar metrology lab, we may never get beyond an endless cycle of rejects, recriminations and remanufacturing.”

“So what makes their parts so hard to measure?” asked Sleuth.

Dyer answered: “O’Toole is worried about tooling that can be very intricate and small. Lots of wire cut EDM features you can’t reach with a CMM probe.  Also tight little radii, where it’s hard to find the starting point. But we can check those things mostly on a comparator or a toolmaker’s microscope.”

“You might,” said O’Toole, “if they were only looking for attribute data.  But they already said they want dimensional data on our tooling and lots of it. If there is any glitch in their manufacturing processes, they want to be able to trace it—right back to us if they can.”

“So we’ll use vision and CMM data.  That will satisfy them,” Dyer pleaded.

“Right,” said O’Toole. “So now we’re going to use two entirely different types of measurement equipment, write two different measurement programs, and give them validation reports with systems that don’t produce comparable data. That’s great.

“And I suppose you are going to use that old vision system sitting in the corner of our lab.  Do you know how hard it is to program that thing?  That’s why we only use it in an emergency.

“And do you know what else he did,” Mr. Sleuth?  “The MEDink guy asked him if we might be able to make some one-off medical parts for them overnight if they ever got into a bind, and . . .”

“A lot of times these days,” Dyer interrupted, “hip joints and bone screws and the like are not off-the-shelf. Instead, they make modifications of standard designs. If a crash victim has short legs, they make a special hip joint just for him. If his bones are too soft, they can make special titanium screws that hold better.”

“It would be a great service to be able to make these things for our customers overnight. But how are we going to measure one-off emergency specials and meet the surgical deadline. And if we don’t measure them adequately, does that make us liable if something goes wrong?”

O’Toole jumped back in, “So guess what he said to this request, Mr. Sleuth: “ ‘I don’t see that as being a problem’.”

We all sat in silence, allowing O’Toole to breathe deeply and regain his composure.

“Interestingly enough,” said Sleuth, “I’ve consulted with the people over at MEDink and the multi-faceted measurement problems you describe are not lost on them.”

“So what are they going to do?” asked O’Toole.

“It’s top secret.”

“Rats,” he shouted. “Tell me, are they using vision?”

“You might say that,” said Sleuth as he slowly lowered his head and winked at Dyer, “but I couldn’t possibly comment.”

“Well, what do they know about vision that we don’t?” asked O’Toole.

“Again, I can’t tell you what they know. But I can tell you that there are a lot of things about today’s vision software that many people have not yet caught on to.”

“What?” said O’Toole & Dyer in unison.

“Well,” said the Sleuth, “until recently vision software was about a decade behind user-friendly software for other devices like CMMs. But today you can program some vision systems using CAD models just like you would a CMM. The program uses the model for a direct comparison as well as a template for rapidly performing measurements. It is so much faster. The software can automatically detect when features to be measured are in range and automatically measures them. It also can automatically compensate for variations in lighting or focal length.

“You can put software like that on your old vision system, use it to collect either attribute or measurement data as needed.  You can even take a picture of your one-off medical part and keep it, along with your program, as a record of both your measurement process and the actual part. Why, in some cases versions of the same software work on both your CMM and vision system.”

“Maybe this new assignment is something we can work out after all,” said O’Toole.

“I think so,” said Sleuth.

“How do you think MEDink will react to a proposal to share vision-based measurement data?” Dyer asked.

“They will think you are very clever tool and die makers and also mind readers,” Sleuth said, once more nodding and winking.

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: Gary Hobart, PC-DMIS Vision Product Manager, Wilcox Associates, This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ; Steve Logee, Director of Business Development, Wilcox Associates, This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ; Rob Fabiano, Sleuth Illustrator, This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it and Joel Cassola, Writer, jocas@cox