As the white goods industry becomes more competitive, demand for manufacturers to evidence improvements in quality is increasing.
Third Dimension’s GapGun has spearheaded non-contact precision measurement tooling for 25+ years and has been the system of choice amongst many leading automotive and aerospace manufacturers. The white goods industry is now seeing the benefits of GapGun and are now adopting the tool within their quality processes.
“We wanted to find the right tool to digitally measure the gap between the washing machine doors. Due to the complex surfaces of our washing machines capturing this measurement data is inherently difficult. Not only could the GapGun get accurate and repeatable measurements of the shiny surfaces, it could also rapidly send that data to our centralised data management system GapGun”, explained one production manager from a well-known white goods manufacturer. “Being able to quantify our improvements in quality is very important to us.”
The GapGun has been praised for its impressive ability to measure a multitude of different surfaces, which previously provided problems for white goods manufacturers.
Another complexity for white goods manufacturers is finding a tool that will measure gaps around parts which are inherently designed to move, such as buttons. With conventional gauges, loose-fitting buttons easily get moved when lining up the gauge, making the measurement inaccurate. The GapGun uses laser triangulation to capture a profile measurement of features, enabling manufacturers to take reliable measurements of the gaps around the buttons by not physically touching the part being measured.
“The tool was easy to set up and really helped us get the job done accurately and efficiently”. claims one production manager from a white goods manufacturer based in Poland. “Operators were set up with the tool within one day”.
As white goods manufacturers continue to look at improving their quality control systems, the GapGun is predictably gaining more attention and opportunities to be the measurement solution of choice.
Third Dimension also boast an automated non-contact measurement solution; the Vectro. Naturally, as quality control improves, a second step would be automation. Just like the GapGun, Vectro is fast and efficient with a dynamic user interface. These features, to name a few, will allow white goods manufacturers to keep raising the quality bar in their production.
