Established in 1993 in Lanark (central Scotland), Martin Aerospace supplies precision-made products to the global aerospace market and other quality-critical industries.

Many of the parts with complex shapes are produced on five-axis machine tools, although all machines undertaking operations such as turning, milling and drilling feature in-process probing that continually monitors quality; these machines are also linked to a central computer system that keeps a record of actual component dimensions.

Martin Aerospace (www.martinaerospace.com) uses two CNC CMMs located in an environment-controlled area to perform 100% final inspection of its output; it recently recognised the need for an additional machine for shopfloor inspection and bought an Xtreme CNC CMM from Gloucestershire-based Aberlink Ltd (www.aberlink.com).

Quality manager Colin Tonnar said: “We ensure that our production personnel have quality uppermost in their minds, and we support them with on-going training, the use of Q-Pulse quality management systems and the latest inspection equipment.

“Following a trouble-free installation in a central location on our shopfloor, followed by operator training, our new Aberlink CMM is now being used by our production staff for in-process inspection procedures.

“Rather than lose valuable production time taking machined parts to our inspection department and waiting for a CMM to complete its current task, accurate CMM inspection results can now be achieved close to the point of manufacture.

"The resulting fast feedback enables machine adjustments to be made when component dimensions drift from nominal conditions.”

Launched at the MACH 2016 exhibition, the Xtreme CNC CMM has a non-Cartesian structure, linear motors and mechanical bearings designed to ensure high levels of accuracy at very fast measurement rates — and without suffering the cumulative inaccuracies that can occur with three-axis Cartesian arrangements.