Quality in mold making – prescribed by the automotive industry

The company was using optical measuring methods in quality assurance for final inspection even before the acquisition of ZEISS COMET, but they did not measure by themselves. This was left to a service provider. But only half a year. "Then we realized that we can only meet our requirements if we take care of quality assurance ourselves."

"Customers' demands for precision have risen and continue to rise," says Kricheldorff. This is understandable, because enormous costs depend on the company's products. The most important service is the manufacturing of casting tools of metal parts for combustion engines, brakes and other components on cars and trains. Also tools for sheet metal forming and fibre-reinforced plastics are being manufactured. If the tool is not absolutely precise, it will produce tons of scrap and therefore high costs.

Testing the complete surface of a complex tool with a coordinate measuring machine would be possible in principle but would take up to a week. On the contrary, an inspection with ZEISS COMET usually does not take longer than four hours and for smaller parts it can be considerably shorter. This accelerates the processes significantly.