Metrology Works To Become Open - Brief Article

Automotive Manufacturing & Production, April, 2001

The Big Three (and Boeing) rolled into the offices of key coordinate measuring machine (CMM) manufacturers. They had a message. These vehicle manufacturers--individually and collectively--own a whole lot of CMMs. They are likely to get more equipment in the days ahead.

But there is one thing that they don't much care for: The fact that there is too much disparity between not only the software systems form one CMM manufacturer to another, but even within a given companies own line. Which is understandable, given that the CMM manufacturers have historically provided complete (arms, controls, software, etc.) closed (i.e., proprietary) packages to customers. Which many have been workable in the past, but as the vehicle manufacturers want to have "common" capabilities throughout their operations, and as their operations undoubtedly have heterogeneous equipment, this closed approach doesn't work anymore. So they suggested that the CMM manufactures might want to change things. And so the CMM manufacturers got together to figure out how to accommodate these very important customers...

It was like this: Representatives from Zeiss, Brown & Sharpe, and LK got together. Their objective was to create a common driver, one that would be common for all metrology companies, not just them. This driver--which is a set of commands, a communications protocol between software and control hardware--will result in compatibility between and among systems. New systems. Old systems. Brand A CMMs. Brand X CMMs. (Assuming that the companies in question install the driver.)

Walter Pettigrew, CEO of LK, and chairman of the Metrology Automation Association (Ann Arbor, MI), the organization that is helping shepherd what is being called the "Metrology Common Driver" (MCD), explains it with a simple analogy: Once you had to buy a specific printer to work with a PC. But common drivers in that space allow you to use whatever printer with whatever PC. The MCD should have the same effect. First it will be developed for CMMs. Then other types of metrology equipment.

Work has been on-going for less than a year. But within a year Pettigrew suggests that about 95-98% of the customers' needs will be addressed.

"This will change, the industry," Pettigrew says. With the MCD, there will be a whole new competitive basis in the CMM field.