Success Stories - INMS Acquires A New High-Performance CMM

Coordinate Measuring Machines (CMMs) have computer-controlled translation stages to move a sensing probe to selected 'touch' points on a workpiece, and thereby measure the 3-D shape and size of features on the object. Industry increasingly relies on CMMs to check the dimensions of complex parts, and in Canada, several thousand machines check billions of dollars of manufactured goods each year.

The INMS Dimensional Metrology Program has brokered a deal with Mitutoyo (Japan) to be the first foreign NMI to test and use their new high-performance Legex CMM. The new machine has a large working volume (700 x 700 x 450 mm3) with a resolution of 10 nm on each axis. INMS will conduct rigorous tests to verify the claimed accuracy specification of U = (480 nm + 10-6L), which is considerably better than any other CMM available.

The partnership is very good for INMS, bringing about $1M of value to the lab for about 1/3 the cost. The age-old problem of staying current with expensive technology on a tiny budget has been overcome, as Mitutoyo will update the hardware and software at no charge for the life of the machine (at least 10 years). The machine arrived with all three types of contact probes and a machine-vision non-contact probe (each worth $40 to 60 k), and the company will soon send two new ultra-high performance probes still under development in Japan.

The rigorous INMS tests and experiences with this technology will be relayed to the company to further improve their metrology hardware and software, and will bounce back to INMS in the form of improved updated products for the new machine, for a win-win outcome.

Switching to Mitutoyo also aligned INMS to Canadian users of over 1000 CMMs using the same software, so that we can better relate and create solutions for this client sector (our previous make of CMM was one of two units in Canada). It is the dawn of a new era of CMM metrology for INMS.

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