A portable CMM and Delcam's PowerINSPECT inspection software allowed Townley Engineering and Manufacturing Co from Candler, Florida, to turn a quality problem into a competitive advantage.

A portable coordinate measuring machine from CimCore and Delcam's PowerINSPECT inspection software allowed Townley Engineering and Manufacturing Co from Candler, Florida, to turn a problem with quality and service life into a competitive advantage for the company. Townley is a manufacturer of replacement bearing assemblies for 'matrix' pumps used in mining. The shock and vibration from chunks of rock in the pumped mixture makes for a harsh environment for pump bearings.

The company began to encounter unexpected wear in its UBD Matrix line of pump assembly bearings in 2002.

'By 2004, bearings for as many as one pump in five suffered a failure,' remembered Townley's quality assurance Manager, Howard Record.

'Some failed after just one month's service.' Careful dimensional measurement with the CimCore arm and PowerINSPECT quickly pinpointed the causes as being problems with concentricity, perpendicularity and bore diameters of the bearing housings supplied by a contract machining company.

The supplier's management quickly found that these inaccuracies were the result of an out-of-calibration horizontal machining centre used to machine housing bores and were soon able to resolve them.

Mr Record found PowerINSPECT so easy to run that he and Inspector Russell Hill had the system working on the first day they used it.

They traced the bearing housing problems with what they learned in a day and a half of demonstrations by Bob Neshta of SunCoast Precision, the local CimCore and Delcam distributor.

'We over-nighted the first inspection results and our new dimensions to the machine shops,' Mr Record said, 'and got better housings from them almost immediately.' As a result, the system 'paid for itself very fast - in two weeks,' Mr Record said, based on the warranty cost of replacing a failed bearing assembly.

The portability of the arm lets Townley employees bring the entire inspection system right to the bearing housing, or any other large workpiece.

After machining, the cast iron housings weigh about 1,000 pounds.

'Because of the size and weight of the housings, the simplicity of setting up and repositioning the arm pays big dividends,' Mr Record said.

Townley's suppliers of machined components now check dimensions on all their parts before they are shipped, but Townley takes no chances.

'To give us the confidence to warranty our products to our mining customers, we inspect the housings and we inspect the final assembly,' Mr Record said.

'With the CimCore arm and PowerINSPECT, we give our customers the best product in the industry,' Mr Record concluded.