ZEISS PLASTICS SOLUTIONS

First article inspection: Measuring technology for plastic parts

Accelerated measurement processes, reliable results and comprehensible reports

Quickly from initial sample to series product

The first article inspection of plastic parts is often carried out under time pressure: The mold making department waits for quick feedback from the metrology team as to whether corrections need to be made to the mold. At the same time, the management expects series production to start soon. In addition, there are demanding documentation requirements and a constantly increasing measuring volume, including annual requalification tests and a high number of product variants.

Measuring systems and software from ZEISS help you to streamline your measurement processes for first article inspection, produce clear measuring results and generate comprehensible measuring reports.

Reliable quality all round

Inspection of defects and internal structures

Find errors

Component inspections with an optical microscope or X-ray CT system provide information about the quality of additive manufactured or injection-molded plastic parts. This allows you to determine the influence of process parameters in a targeted manner and achieve the desired printing or injection molding result more quickly.

Shape and dimension analysis

Generate and evaluate surface data

Shape and dimension analysis with complete measuring and test reports (ISTR) ensures compliance with functional and optical requirements and guarantees stress-free mounting of a plastic part. The first article inspection can be carried out according to a measurement plan (CMM inspection), CAD model or PMI data set with functions such as Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing (GD&T). The ZEISS software includes intelligent functions for easy inspection of GD&T.

Fields of application

ZEISS measuring solutions support you in this

Visual inspection to detect visible defects on the surface and internal structures
Inspection of geometries, e.g. distances, radii, diameters, angles
Defect analysis
Inspection of the material thickness
Sink marks, warpage and shrinkage (local/global)
Compensation for shrinkage
Cavity comparison
Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing, GPS

Benefits

Efficiently to series production

Easy-to-understand measuring results allow you to quickly determine correction values for tool geometry, such as sink marks or warpage and shrinkage, as well as for machine and process parameters, such as holding pressure, temperature control and filling time.

Software functions facilitate further detailed inspections: Surface defect map, silhouette and cluster.

5 smart tools for inspecting plastic parts

Powerful software functions

Webinar recording

This video gives you a detailed insight into the following topics: Digital assembly, virtual clamping of plastic parts (measurement without fixture), GD&T inspection, PMI import and trend analysis for single and multi-component molds.

Today, we save a lot of time by programming our measuring programs offline. We didn't have this opportunity with our previous measuring devices.

Mathias Schlegel
Team leader measurement technology at KRAMSKI