Peterborough-based OAL has been designing and manufacturing automated engineering solutions for the world’s food industry for more than 20 years; and to ensure that it continues to be regarded as a leader in its chosen field, it makes regular investments in advanced technology that helps to guarantee the quality of its work and supports the efficient completion of its projects.

To speed up the measurement and drawing process that takes place at the start of a plant installation or system modification project, OAL recently bought a Focus3D X 30 laser scanner from Rugby-based Faro Technologies UK Ltd (www.faro.com).

Jake Norman, OAL’s marketing manager, said: “In an ideal world, every factory would have accurate, fully dimensioned 2-D/3-D drawings of every aspect of each facility, so that proposed plant modifications could be easily assessed and defined. In reality, remodelling a plant to meet the requirements of new products usually involves an extremely time-consuming measurement and drawing process.

“For complex plants, these crucial procedures were taking too long, and it was difficult at times to achieve the desired levels of dimensional accuracy.

The lack of visual dimensional information often meant that initial discussions relating to new layouts were delayed or made more difficult by working with inaccurate information.

“The use of our Faro Focus3D now quickly gives us precise 2-D/3-D drawings and layouts that are accurate to 2mm. Our specialist team can rapidly and precisely scan a single area — or an entire site. Depending on a facility’s equipment, complexity and size, we sometimes need to make multiple scans.

At each position, the scanner captures 976,000 measurement points per second in a full 360deg of data capture.

“After an area has been scanned, the survey team carries out a post-processing routine to register millions of data elements, thereby allowing the creation of a scanned ‘point cloud’ and a full ‘3-D walk through’ of the area. We can then repeat the process for other areas of the factory, eventually creating a ‘project point cloud’ of the entire site.

“Now, all plant remodelling is based on accurate data, so the entire design process is much quicker — and accurate information is available for optimal reverse engineering.

“Finally, at the project installation stage, the availability of accurate data ensures that our new parts fit first time.”

Paul Woolner, OAL’s lead designer, said: “Before our laser scanner, we used a laser tape to measure facilities prior to designing and installing new plant or modifying existing plant.

“Although this system provided fairly good results, we felt that a laser scanner would be able to considerably improve accuracy and dramatically cut the time taken to capture the required results.

“Now in regular use, our Faro Scanner has delivered in both areas; and given the size and complexity of many of the plants that we need to measure, our ability to now remotely scan them rather than access them physically is proving much safer.

“Following the on-site training provided by Faro, our team soon became familiar with the equipment’s basic function; and the personnel who had the initial training have been able to pass on their knowledge to other colleagues.

“Now, 20 OAL staff are able to use the scanner; and in addition to its practical use, our Faro equipment gives our customers assurances related to OAL’s professionalism and our quest for high levels of accuracy.”