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The shopfloor CMM inspection system shown above caught my eye at this year's in Milan, Italy, largely because it resembled a pallet-pool HMC. The difference is that this system is designed to perform long stretches of unattended measurement of various parts, not machining them.

The heart of this system is a four-axis Leitz Serio XI CMM from Hexagon Metrology, with the fourth axis provided by a rotary table. Instead of having an automatic toolchanger, it has an automatic probe changer that can accommodate 24 probes. It also features multiple pallets that can be pre-loaded with parts requiring inspection. Semi- or fully automatic pallet loading versions are available.

This concept reminded me of this article I wrote earlier this year, in which a shop was developing a process to enable lights-out inspection of its parts, leveraging CMM and quick-change fixturing technologies to enable unattended measurement of multiple workpieces.

Implementing strategies like these can minimize the impact that part measurement has on a shop’s bottom line.