Keys To Successfully Managing Dimensional Inspections When Making A Part
Prior to a part being produced on a mass scale, ample inspections and testing have to take place first. Part of this includes a dimensional inspection, which checks to see how the end part compares to plans of said component. If you use these tips throughout this process, you can get back meaningful results.
Create Goals for Different Tolerances
You're only going to know how to use data from dimensional inspections if you first come up with some tolerance goals for the part being made. Then you can make meaningful comparisons and know if changes need to occur. The tolerance categories might include diameter thickness, surface smoothness, and shapes.
Make sure you create clear tolerances for these categories, so that you know exactly what to compare once you get results back from a dimensional inspection performed by a licensed and experienced lab.
Perform Dimensional Inspection After Making Improvements
After you get back results from a dimensional inspection and make improvements according to what tolerances need more work with a part, you'll need to perform a dimensional inspection again. That's the only way you're going to see if the changes you made were meaningful or if there are still tolerances that need work.
If you work with a dimensional inspection lab, they'll already have the right equipment to carry out as many dimensional inspections as you need and in a short period of time too. Just give yourself enough time to study the results from these reports before going at these inspections again.
Utilize Software Sharing When Working With a Lab
If you're working with a company to have dimensional inspections carried out, it's a good idea to make sure their inspection software provides sharing capabilities. Then instead of having to call the lab to get your dimensional inspection results back for parts being developed, you can just use the shared software program.
Data will automatically feed into this software for you to look at whenever it's convenient. The lab that carries out this inspection can include notes with the data too if you want further clarification for which tolerances may be slightly off.
If you need to create parts that are perfect in terms of their wall thicknesses or overall shape, then you can have dimensional inspections carried out to see if your designs come out great. Just make sure you structure these inspections up correctly before trying to analyze results provided at a later date.
