【Typical clients】Shanghai Yahong Plastic Mould Manufacturing Co., Ltd is a company which is specially engaged in design and manufacture of medium and small-sized precise plastic mould. The production of the company has achieved a certain scale. Its production goal is to provide good quality plastic mould and products for big international corporations or famous domestic companies.

【Problems】 The company has a manual measuring machine which has been used for years to carry out measurement of workpiece strict in tolerance. However, the machine only can inspect basic shape and position tolerance and is unable to conduct comparative measurement to CAD mathematical model directly. Owing to long service life, the precision and efficiency of the machine have not met the requirements of current production and inspection.

【Solution】 After deep survey, evaluation and comparative test, Yahong Mould finally selected Enjoy685 moving gantry measuring machine. Its actual measuring range is 600×800×500mm and all the three axes apply granite with big section as basic guideway, which ensures the stability of precision for a long term and the influence of changed temperature on precision. The design of big span bridge enables this machine to have great dynamic characteristics and meanwhile air bearing with high rigidity and distribution of big span will enhance the precision and stable operation of the entire machine.

Previously, their products just required to measure the installation dimension of some hole sites and grooves. In other words, it would be enough if the installation could be carried out correctly. With the development of automobile industrial technology, the fit dimensions of products are increasingly strict, and the coordinate dimension on boundary points is particularly important for products. In this case, this kind of workpiece needs to measure hundreds of points. For manual measuring machine, obviously it can not finish this task. Presently, they introduce into CAD 3D modeling software system which can measure both tolerance of shape and position, profile of curve and cambered surface and coordinate of key points. Not only install correctly, but also the gaps around should be consistent after installation.

Mould development is the most important part in business scope of the company. They have a professional modeling design studio which is strong in technology. Hence the company is engaging in more and more reverse engineering that has become very important. The company usually gets moulds without CAD models and drawing dimension but only a sample of product. They must obtain complete data of reverse modeling through coordinate. However, Enjoy has unique TP-Scan function that it measures the sample digitally by trigger type scanning probe (TP20) to finish the data collection for the workpiece. The point cloud management system of PS-DMIS enables discrete points to form a cambered surface very easily and conveniently, and also transform available workpiece into 3D mathematical model. The development and manufacture of moulds includes manufacture, verification, mould tryout and other processes. It is a convenient and rapid measuring system, which can provide various dimension information timely, including cambered surface deviation, characteristics and edge location, section measurement and other measuring results so as to rapidly realize verification and regulation of the workpiece. Engineers input CAD modeling of the workpiece to establish coordinate system. There are many methods to align coordinate system and theoretical CAD mathematical model. According to the characteristics of the workpiece, it can be carried out the most rapid and simple method to inspect the guide bar of mould and the measuring characteristics required by clients. Clients find appropriate points on the workpiece and build a plane or boundary point vector to confirm position. That is to say, the workpiece can be measured adhering to points of CAD mathematical model on workpiece.

PS-DMIS has strong CAD function and can rapidly provide details about the surface of practical mould, freely match with theoretical CAD of original design and help to prepare a program about mould processing and how to repair in order to accurately indicate the sticking point of problem and provide proper operation to reduce the time spent on repeated experiments.

After the company possessed a new Enjoy measuring machine, it greatly helps the development, design and manufacture process of mould and largely enhances the product quality control. Firstly, designing department need not translate any drawings; secondly, the work efficiency of surveyors increases. Because of automatic program and CAD mathematical model input, the efficiency of measurement has increased eight times. In this case, they do not need to work in shifts. Furthermore, the qualification rate of spot check for the third product has been heightened and the quality becomes more steadily good. Additionally, since the inspection of data transmission is the most crucial, the quality department can be informed about quality problems in time and carry out online regulation. Therefore, productive efficiency is greatly improved and the condemning limit largely decreases. CNC processing technology combining with RP rapid modeling technology, the period of product development, research and manufacture is greatly reduced, which creates decisive occasion for new products entering the market. Yahong mould has played a leading role in mould industry.