Coordinate Measuring Machine Ensures Quality Control of High-Precision Special Parts

You would not necessarily expect to find a factory where companies such as Ferrari and BMW come and go in a continuous stream in Pyrbaum, a village of 5,500 people to the south of Nuremberg. The quality of the components, which 130 employees produce in a manufacturing facility in the middle of an inconspicuous industrial estate, is what attracts the designers of high-speed cars – and also of aircraft and nuclear power stations – to the Upper Palatinate. The company is called Müller Präzisionsteile GmbH and the name basically says it all - Präzisionsteile means precision parts in German.
Stephan Müller, son of the company founder Georg Müller, is in his element during the factory tour. There is the camshaft for Audi with two cams per valve which can be shifted, thereby giving the engine a different power characteristic. Even the layman can see that the shaft with the movable sleeves has to be manufactured with extreme precision, so that nothing jams here.

Quality inspector Michael Ehrnsberger shows how it works: clamp the plate of the stylus system and undo the screws with a hexagon wrench and adjust. The setting is then perfect and Ehrnsberger tightens up the screws again. This only takes a few minutes and provides settings with one hundred percent repeatability. You have your hands free for good measure, because the ingeniously simple machine holds the stylus securely. The procedure took a half an hour each time – valuable time during which the measuring machine was not working productively.
However, the device not only speeds up the adjustment, it also prevents measuring errors. These occur e.g. in situations where a stylus moves into a narrow gap at an angle. If the stylus sphere is not considerably larger than the shaft, it is possible that the shaft instead of the sphere will rest on the measurement object and significant deviations occur. "Anyone who frequently changes heads should buy FixAssist", recommends Günther Eckstein, head of Quality Assurance.