Metrology
Complex scan of a W12 crankshaft – GOM demo 2016
Virtual measuring room (VMR) – Measuring three parts simultaneously
Fast measurement of forged parts
leading forging company in France. It is part of Sifcor, a family-owned group, founded in the 1880s in Nogent in the Haute-Marne department. Originally specialising in the manufacture of cutlery blanks, the group diversified in the 1950s into other business sectors, such as the automotive industry. Today, the automotive sector is the group’s main market. Forges de Courcelles produces steel parts for chassis, steering systems, engines and transmissions. It uses semi-hot stamping and hot stamping steel processes combined with industrial presses and forging hammers. Clients include established automotive brands
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like Renault, Peugeot, BMW and Volkswagen. Today, the business has around 450 employees with a turnover of €150 million and sells over 65,000 tonnes of steel, 41 per cent via exports.
AlWAyS On THe lOOkOuT FOr innOvATiOnS Forges de Courcelles was always clear that technological change has to be reflected in its production facilities, so it has always focused on innovation and further development. In the 1970s, Forges de Courcelles introduced
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orges de Courcelles is the second largest European manufacturer of crankshafts for well-known automotive brands and a
industrial presses and started using induction heating methods to deliver on a mass production scale. The first presses weighing 6,300 tonnes were installed in the 1990s. In 2007, the business invested in its first 8,000-tonne press enabling it to supply parts to manufacturers in Germany. A second press of the same weight was purchased in 2014 to help with high-volume manufacturing of crankshafts. However, innovation means more to Forges de Courcelles than simply investing in a few new machines. It also makes innovative parts and invests in robotics and in the automation of entire production lines. Thanks to its use of robots the company has, for example broadened production to include heavier parts, while shortening production ramp-up times. As part of its continuous striving for improvement and innovation, the business also became more interested in optical 3D metrology and the solutions offered by GOM.
A grOWing inTereST in OpTiCAl 3D MeASureMenT Cyril Schäfer has been responsible for the Methodology and Research and Development (R&D) departments at Forges de Courcelles for 15 years. He was one of the driving forces behind the acquisition of a GOM measuring system, along with Vincent Bouet, who has worked at Forges de
Full-field data design deviation on GOM mesh
Forges de Courcelles is a forging company, based in the Haute-Marne department in France, that makes crankshafts for prestigious automotive brands. With the help of an automated optical 3D measuring cell – the ATOS ScanBox – the business has been able to improve its production processes by shortening inspection times and increasing the amount of data collected.
Courcelles for 17 years, five of them as head of the Quality Assurance department. The company began to get interested in optical
3D measuring systems about 10 years ago. It started talks with GOM during the initial stages of its R&D benchmarking analysis. At this point, Forges de Courcelles did not have any prior knowledge of 3D scanning and was only using conventional coordinate measuring machines (CMMs) with probes. “We attended a Forges and Foundries
Workshop organised by the GOM office in Metz in 2016,” says Schäfer. “We took a complex crankshaft with us as a demo to measure and the hand-operated ATOS Triple Scan 3D scanner was able to measure it in just a few minutes. This was when we seriously started to consider using the ATOS Triple Scan in production control.” Convinced by the GOM system demonstration,
Schäfer and his colleagues initiated a demonstration and technical validation period of the ATOS ScanBox as an automated solution. In June 2018, the ATOS ScanBox 5120, fitted with the ATOS II Triple Scan sensor and the Plus12M module was installed in the workshops at Forges de Courcelles.
AuTOMATeD AnD ACCelerATeD inSpeCTiOn The ability to carry out inspections quickly was a key factor for Forges de Courcelles. Depending
August 2020 Instrumentation Monthly
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