REINCARNATING A MONSTER

When SES (Huntsville, AL) recently leased 500,000 sq ft of the old 1,200,000 sq ft Dunlop tire manufacturing facility in Huntsville, they needed a big coordinate measuring machine (CMM). So the Department of Defense-, ISO9001:2000-, AS9100:2004 Rev B-, and FAA-approved 145 Repair Station manufacturing supplier began searching the Internet to find someone to provide them with a large gantry-type CMM.

As the world?s largest supplier of rebuilt and remanufactured CMMs, Xspect Solutions (Wixom, MI) stood out as the best potential source because the manufacturer has extensive expertise in the area of large CMMs.

Millard Jernigan, vice president for special projects for the Huntsville operations of Science and Engineering Services, explains. ?We have recently secured a significant number of new hardware and services contracts from the U.S. Department of Defense and other related OEM manufacturers that required more manufacturing floor space to accommodate programs involving military equipment like tank components (turrets) and helicopters.

?The helicopter work includes modification, upgrade, rebuild and painting of all types of Army helicopters,? Jernigan continues. ?In Huntsville we have had a 61,000 sq ft manufacturing facility for the past 12 years, but we recently leased this additional space and have completely refurbished it to handle some of our new programs.?

This space is completely heated and air-conditioned, newly painted floor to ceiling and with lighting of 100+ ft candles at bench level. ?We have installed large milling machines and a large waterjet cutting machine with a 13 ft x 13 ft bed capable of cutting up to 8 in armor plate,? notes Jernigan. ?As part of this new capital investment program, we required a large CMM to provide the high quality level of inspection we were going to need for checking large airframes. We discovered this supplier on the Internet and found that they not only sold new CMMs but had the capability to find us a pre-owned CMM. I believe they call them ?Xperienced? machines that could meet our needs at a significant savings.?

In some cases, older CMM frames were originally manufactured to more exacting standards than some of the newer machines, and with the right level of remanufacture they can effectively operate for 15 to 20 more years. ?We asked them to show us what they could do,? smiles Jernigan.

?It wasn?t very difficult to find a pre-owned gantry CMM of the size that SES required,? says Keith Mills, the president of Xspect Solutions, ?because there are only six of them here in the U.S. We were able to purchase an older DEA Lambda 5509 gantry machine that was originally owned by Caterpillar.?

This is a big CMM, standing 300 in high with a work envelope that includes an X-travel of 320 in, Y-travel of 128 in and Z-travel of 100 in. ?Apart from going thoroughly through all the mechanics of this machine, we rescaled it, replaced all of the original cables, retrofitted it with a new Wenzel CNC controller and upgraded the software to OpenDMIS,? explains Mills. ?When we were finished, they had a like-new ?Xsperienced? gantry CMM with a savings of nearly 70 percent when compared against the cost of a new machine.?

Since that time, Xspect Solutions has proceeded to purchase two other similar large pre-owned gantry CMMs and has retained them in stock, awaiting new customer commitments.

?They provided us with a turnkey program for this project,? adds Jernigan. ?We consulted with them on the specifications for the isolation pad that was required and the modifications to the building that we needed. We actually had to raise the roof of the building 11 ft to get that CMM inside, and ultimately we provided a new ceiling for the CMM area that was 11 ft higher than what was originally there.?

SES currently has their CMM technicians being trained on using the OpenDMIS software and creating the inspection programs they need. The company has used CMMs for a number of years, but nothing like the size of this gantry machine. ?This capability now allows us to accurately inspect products like 9 ft diameter tank turrets and helicopter frames,? states Jernigan. ?The installation of this CMM provides us with the additional opportunity of offering quality measurement services to other commercial or government organizations.?

Xspect Solutions is a wholly owned subsidiary of Wenzel GmbH (Wiesthal, Germany) and the Number 3 supplier of both traditional CMMs and GMMs(gear measuring machines) to the North American metrology market.

Wenzel GmbH manufacturers its products intrinsically accurate, negating the need for the huge error compensation files to achieve quoted accuracies which have become the norm for most manufacturers in past years. The black granite used by Wenzel is processed in-house at their impressive manufacturing facilities in Germany, not imported from China pre-finished?which in now the industry norm.

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Xspect Solutions, Inc., 47000 Liberty Drive, Wixom, Michigan 48393, 248) 295-4300 Fax: 248-295-430, kmills@XspectSolutions.com, www.XspectSolutions.com.