Benham Precision Engineering is a prominent supplier in the aerospace and defence sectors, specialising in the production of complex components and sub-assemblies. Their products, such as manifolds, bodies, castings, and casings, play a critical role in ensuring safety, making even the slightest errors unacceptable in their manufacturing processes.
To enhance their part inspection capabilities and elevate their quality control procedures, they installed three non-contact metrology systems supplied by VICIVISION UK, including the MTL1, M306, and M309 models.
VICIVISION UK’s optical turned part measurement systems revolutionised Benham Precision Engineering’s product quality control and inspection processes, improving speed, repeatability, and accuracy, reducing lead times, and enabling reliable measurement of complex features with sub-10-micron tolerances.
Project Brief:
With growing demands and high-risk components being manufactured, Benham Precision Engineering needed to ensure their measurement systems and quality checks were of the highest quality for their customers.
Benham Precision Engineering had encountered limitations with conventional measurement tools like micrometres, height gauges, and shadowgraphs. These tools were time-consuming, susceptible to human error, and lacked the necessary precision for critical aerospace and defence components.
“Speed, repeatability and accuracy were three things we were looking for as a business. Obviously on-time delivery to our customers is absolutely essential, as well as the quality of the parts,” explained Joe Benham, the Programme Manager for Benham Precision Engineering.
“We need to make sure that our customers are able to satisfy their demand requirements, but also maintaining the fact that a lot of our product is critical to flight and safety and therefore the quality needs to be absolutely 100 per cent,” Joe explained.
Benham Precision Engineering recognised the abilities of the VICIVISION UK machines to reduce the timeframe of verification, whilst maintaining the quality and accuracy of their measurements.
The Solution:
Benham Precision Engineering began by installing an MTL1 machine. Since, they have invested in two systems from VICIVISION’s flagship Techno range, the M306 and the M309. Their wide measuring fields, impressive load capacities, high-resolution capabilities and intuitive software, make them future proof and perfectly suited to Benham’s growing manufacturing demands.
“We could see from the first moment that we utilised the VICIVISION machine within the department that the rate we were inspecting work increased rapidly,” said Joe.
“We’ve definitely seen reduced lead times to our customers, which has given us an advantage over other businesses. It enables us to get product to our customer quickly and efficiently.”
The Benefits:
VICIVISION UK’s world-leading optical measuring solutions cater specifically for turned, ground and cylindrical parts. Using a combination of advanced video camera technology and light projection, the machines automatically deliver detailed and consistent results on even the most complex features in just a matter of seconds.
“Previously, where we would be utilising micrometres, height gauges and shadowgraphs to check components, now we’re capturing all of that within 30 seconds to a minute on a VICIVISION UK machine,” said Joe.
“What VICIVISION has provided is a reliable, repeatable, accurate measurement solution. We work down to sub-10-micron tolerances on our machine tools and we’re able to reliably repeat those processes using the equipment around us and the technology to verify what we’re doing.
“Going forward as a business we want to very much focus on productivity through technology, and we believe the use of optical measurement equipment to assist in that will be key.”
Why VICIVISION UK?
With the Technology on offer from VICIVISION UK, it proved to be an easy decision for Benham to invest and futureproof their inspections.
“Having seen the capability of the VICIVISION equipment we knew it was a sound investment for Benham and we knew that the investment would be paid back,” said Joe.
“It’s completely revolutionised the way that we go about inspecting parts within Benham.”
