In today’s highly competitive automotive industry, styling is a major differentiator between brands. Surface scanning is the ideal solution to feed modifications on physical prototypes back into the digital design process.

Measuring actual wheel and powertrain motion during various driving maneuvers is key for both suspension development and packaging studies. CFD, FE and crash simulation on the other hand rely on measured surface models to improve and validate their models.

The goal of the pilot plant is to verify all assembly procedures in order to avoid any problems during series production. This requires a thorough dimensional control of every component, subassembly and finally the fully assembled vehicle against CAD data.

During die and mold manufacturing, detailed measurements of tools and first parts together with CAD comparison are very important. Digital copies of existing dies and molds will considerably reduce the time to repair broken tools.

In order to respond quickly to changes in customer demand, it is important to reduce the time needed to adapt a production line to a new model to the strict minimum. Robot calibration, on-site fixture checking and flexible AGV guidance systems will contribute a lot to this.

The position and dimensions of features such as holes and slots in automotive sheet metal components are critical. Some of these features serve as reference locations for positioning parts at later stages in the assembly process, while others are used to attach trim components to the body.

Machined surfaces of both engine and transmission components have very strict dimensional and form tolerances in order to guarantee their proper operation, a reduced fuel consumption and a long life time. This requires high-speed, high-accuracy next-to-the-line inspection solutions.

Every automotive component whether it is a suspension part, a wheel rim, a bumper or a plastic air filter box has to meet predefined dimensional specifications. Not meeting these specifications is not an option for a supplier.

The first impression a customer gets about a car’s quality comes from small things like the appearance of the gaps around doors or the effort required to close a door. Checking these before a car leaves the factory can highly improve the car’s image.