Looking at the future of manufacturing metrology: roadmap document of the German VDI/VDE Society for Measurement and Automatic Control

Abstract

Abstract. "Faster, safer, more accurately and more flexibly" is the title of the "manufacturing metrology roadmap" issued by the VDI/VDE Society for Measurement and Automatic Control (www.vdi.de/gma). The document presents a view of the development of metrology for industrial production over the next ten years and was drawn up by a German group of experts from research and industry. The following paper summarizes the content of the roadmap and explains the individual concepts of "Faster, safer, more accurately and more flexibly" with the aid of examples. Metrology and productionUnder the impact of global megatrends, manufacturing technology is faced with a number of different challenges. The topics of resource efficiency, of mastering new process technologies, of increasing flexibility and of transparency have a special significance in production today ( Fig. 1).At the same time the trend towards higher product quality continues uninterrupted. Globalization has made it possible for production to be linked on a worldwide basis, in which the exchange of information is becoming more and more important in securing quality. Much of this information, particularly that concerned with the state of the products and production processes, is obtained with the aid of metrology.Against a background of discussions about the supply of energy and shortages in raw materials, the subject of resource efficiency plays an important role today in production as well. New methods in manufacturing can make a contribution to improving resource efficiency. This also requires the use of measurement technology since only this can supply the information needed for evaluating efficiency.Manufacturing technology continues to be faced with challenges arising from customer desire for individually designed products and from fluctuating demand, which it counters with a greater degree of flexibility. This is accompanied by a considerable reduction in batch sizes, which can often only be managed by a more intensive use of metrology since lengthy production start-ups and pilot production runs can hardly be afforded any longer. At the same time more and more sectors of industry (such as aviation, medical products) are calling for a seamless documentation of the conformity assessment of all manufactured products, which is also impossible without a more intensive use of metrology.The term "production metrology" is a natural one for metrology within the context of production, but this metrology is nevertheless also referred to as "manufacturing metrology" in German (Pfeifer and Schmitt, 2010; Dutschke and Keferstein, 2007). Figure 2 provides an overview of the more important fields of application for manufacturing metrology. These are also examined in the technical committees of the "manufacturing metrology" department of the VDI/VDE Society for Measurement and Automatic Control (GMA, 2012) where a working group has been formed which, in light of the aforementioned trends in manufacturing technology, has assigned itself the task of forecasting the futur...

Toward a cyber-physical manufacturing metrology model for industry 4.0

“…Industry 4.0 defines a methodology to generate a transformation from machine dominant manufacturing (metrology) to digital manufacturing (metrology) (Berthold and Imkamp, 2013), by cyber-physical systems (CPS), cloud system, Big data and data mining, machine to machine interfaces, enterprise resource planning and Business intelligence, Internet of Things (IoT), augmented reality, simulation, virtual manufacturing, and intelligent robotics. All those elements include different levels of manufacturing activities.…”

“…According to Berthold and Imkamp (2013), in the manufacturing sector, in metrology context, there are three areas where Industry 4.0 will provide support: (a) smart supply chains (cyber-physical metrological traceability); (b) smart manufacturing (cyber-physical metrology in manufacturing); and (c) smart products (intelligent metrology).…”

Nanometrología: Impacto en los sistemas de producción

“…Lo anterior relaciona que el principal concepto a optimizar son los sistemas de medición, en busca de mejorar las cadenas productivas a nanoescala. Estas mejoras hacen referencia al aumento de velocidad en las operaciones dentro de los procesos, aumento en los niveles de precisión y exactitud en la información que entregan los equipos de medición, disminuyendo la incertidumbre y generando confiabilidad de los datos numéricos que relacionan una característica de producto [6].…”

From NDT to prognostics: advanced technologies for improved quality, safety and reliability

“…The various approaches to advanced manufacturing are moving QA/QC metrology beyond dimensional characterization [19]. Techniques are needed to characterize texture, porosity, hardness as well as moduli, in real time.…”