Nikon Metrology announced a new partnership with NSI Microscopy Inspection Automation of Wexford, Ireland, helping customers with Continuous Process Improvement by making use of automated microscopy.

NSI is a leader in the field of Continuous Process Improvement by using Automated Microscopy Software. The company specializes in medical device, pharmaceuticals, electronics, wafer technology, and other sectors involving challenging inspection requirements. The company’s breakthrough platform, the NSI Toolbox, can detect any deviation and categorize it as a defect whether it be a dimension or an attribute surface defect, and then presents it to an operator in a result-driven interface. The NSI technology digitizes a production document, taking any process, converting it into a digital algorithm, and reducing the inspection to a simple one button press action.

The partnership allows Nikon Metrology to target the medical device community in which NSI specializes, but this type of automation can be used in conjunction with any type of microscopy, or even images from the Nikon Metrology’s NEXIV video-measuring system. The software is fully configurable, taking images from an optical device and analyzing them while presenting them on a result driven interface in micro-seconds. Even process specific and customized algorithms can be added to the standard NSI Platform to further improve that process.

“We work with Nikon because they have a premium optical product which complements our NSI Software Toolbox” says John Moore, sales and marketing director for NSI.

“We recognize that the marketplace is changing and that customers are looking for more automation,” says Darrell Sanderson, vice president of Industrial Products and Services at Nikon Metrology Americas. “NSI brings to us this automation and a degree of artificial intelligence that allows microscopy to move into the next decade.”

The partnership between these two technologically savvy organizations is an example of how advanced manufacturing processes are permeating all levels of industry.

“What we’re striving for is to bring microscopy to the fourth industrial revolution,” Moore says. “At first, you might have an operator at a system pressing a button, but in the due course of time this will be an automatic decision-making system in itself that keeps all data centralized for audit management, reusing that data for further process and product optimization. This is what NSI ultimately strive for.”

“We are automating microscopy and applications primarily to move process and technology forward, and that’s a great thing for the customers that Nikon Metrology and NSI will be serving together,” Sanderson concludes.

Micromachining, cutting where the volume of chips produced with each tool path is very small, is not a high-speed operation in relation to chip load per tooth. Rather, it involves a high spindle speed relative to cutter diameter. The part may be physically larger, but details of the part require ultra-small profiles achieved only by micromachining. In other words, micromachining is not limited in scope to only miniature parts.

Tool holding

In medical work, where tight tolerances are standard, dynamic runout (the measurement of the spindle at high speeds, performed using laser or capacitance resistance technology) and balance must be controlled to deliver and maintain viable tool life. Much of this burden falls on the holder. Balance doesn’t change as spindle speed increases, however the forces it creates increase exponentially alongside speed. The impacting results appear quickly in micromachining.

When runout occurs, the edge most affected takes over the bulk of the cutting. Uneven wear causes the tool to fail more quickly than if the tool rotates about the centerline as intended. In one customer application, we found that drilling into a steel workpiece 0.590" deep with a 0.118" diameter carbide drill in a holder with 0.00008" runout accuracy produced 2,300 holes. A holder with 0.00060" runout accuracy produced nearly two-thirds fewer holes, only 800. In this scenario, the shop could save hundreds of dollars a month in carbide costs – as well as labor costs due to less tool changing – by making one smart tool holder choice.

Holder attributes that can boost production include symmetrical design, a perfectly concentric collapse of the collet around the cutter, and a ball-bearing raceway nut with precision-ground threads.

It’s an 800 lb beast, a massive component with seven uniquely machined features. It arrives at Schleifring Medical Systems’ Elgin, Illinois, shop partially assembled, making it nearly impossible to get inside to measure for accuracy and range.

Operators had to use a crane to manually flip the component in multiple directions to measure all critical features and obtain the required dimensions. Not only did this slow the production process, it posed a significant safety concern for workers. Schleifring sought an alternate solution that would save time, streamline the process, ensure quality, and make production easier for its operators.

Industry partners

Schleifring considered portable measuring arms, laser applications, and bridge-type coordinate measuring machines (CMMs). Due to the part’s tolerancing, the company determined that a portable measuring arm wouldn’t be accurate enough or have the reach to meet requirements. And while laser measuring systems would have increased accuracy compared to portable measuring arms, the high cost of laser applications at the time made this option prohibitive.

Read the full article here.

Ulbrich is pleased to announce the unveiling of one of the world’s most advanced 20 High Rolling Mill at our Wallingford, CT, location where we cold-roll precision strip and foil for more than 160 alloys of stainless steels and special metals. The installation of this new Rolling Mill is in line with Ulbrich’s customer-focused development partnership strategy and our continuous improvement initiatives. The new mill has state of the art capabilities which further enhance the quality of our steel in all of the critical markets we serve. With this additional capacity, Ulbrich can now provide an even higher level of service which enables us to support greater new product development business for the future.  

The new Rolling Mill can handle a wide range of thicknesses with a technically advanced automatic gauge control and shape control system to closely monitor real time variations of thickness and flatness throughout the length of each coil that is rolled. Ulbrich is a capability driven company and a resource like this greatly improves our ability to give our customers the highest quality and most precise engineered strip. As we approach our 100th anniversary in 2024, we are excited to share this investment news with our customers! This new endeavor celebrates and demonstrates the strong Ulbrich Family long-term commitment to our company and our employees.