Current trends in industrial measurement technology

The progressive digitization of manufacturing companies is the primary reason for the current changes in QA. In the following, however, we will focus on the aspect and trends of industrial measurement technology:

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• Measurement technology directly in production: The closer the measurement technology can get to production, the better. In-line or near-line solutions are becoming more commonplace and companies therefore expect more and more “plug and play” solutions for integrating and automating measurement technology in manufacturing systems.

• Process assurance and product testing are becoming significantly more prominent areas of measurement technology in companies. The processes are validated on the line — here the speed requirement prevails, the measurement, shape and position remains in the measurement rooms — the requirement of accuracy prevails here.

• Measurement technology becomes easy to use: The users in production are not experts in measurement technology. For this reason, more and more emphasis is placed on ease of use and comprehensibility of the results. New interface and operating concepts are required specifically for users in manufacturing.

• Quick to execute. The QA processes must be able to meet the pace of production. This means measuring faster, concentrating on the essentials and not having to take all the steps again when repeating.

• Right in the feedback to the processing machine. If an error/problem is detected, it should be reported and resolved very promptly. The rapid processing of correction values has become an important goal of QA.

• Predictive Support through the use of AI. Trend changes are identified before production runs “out of tolerance.” AI solutions will find their way here in the coming years and will support users, not override them.