“Huge reductions in inspection time and the ability to measure form – REVO® has opened a new frontier”
GE Oil and Gas Florence has transformed the performance of a DEA Global CMM with a retrofit system direct from Renishaw, allowing far higher data collection rates and thus form analysis, never before practically possible on the DEA CMM
Every year, GE Oil and Gas invites customers to an open house at its factory in Florence, Italy. This year 800 customers saw the results of a GE Oil and Gas New Technology Introduction project - a DEA Global coordinate measuring machine (CMM), retrofitted with a Renishaw REVO® system and measuring impeller parts at a dramatic speed.
As Claudio Bartali (Manufacturing Technology Project Leader) explains “The demonstration was spectacular – inspection time on a typical impeller reduced by 4 times. However, that is not the main reason we started the project and employed Renishaw to retrofit the CMM with REVO. The exciting part will start soon when we use the massive amount of accurate REVO-measured data to compare the form of inspected surfaces with the 3D CAD models.”
The retrofit, performed directly by Renishaw with its own experienced engineers, replaced the previous head, touch trigger probe, DEA controller and PC-DMIS® software with the Renishaw Renscan5™ system - REVO 5-axis scanning head, UCC2 controller and MODUS™ software.
Saverio Chiari (Manufacturing Technology Leader) is delighted with how smoothly it went, “The Renishaw service is very good – they are very focused on customer support and have been very supportive in the changeover to REVO.”
With a requirement for 100% inspection, there is a high demand on the CMMs and programming systems, which need to adapt constantly. At the GE plant in Florence, the DEA Global is used to perform dimensional inspections on components varying in size and geometry up to 1000 mm diameter.
