Established in 1988, Alpha Precision Engineering is a sub-contract company that specialises in the manufacture of components and assemblies to customers’ specifications.

Soon after it was formed, the company began working towards achieving the relevant quality accreditations, purchasing advanced CNC machine tools and the best-available inspection equipment.

Alpha Precision, which now has quality approvals to BS EN ISO 9001, EN9100 and AS9100 rev C, is located near Poole Harbour in two modern adjoining factory units with a combined floor area of 16,000ft².

Currently, 70% of the company’s output is delivered to the aerospace and canning sectors, with oil and gas, as well as Formula One, accounting for most of its remaining business.

To enable Alpha Precision’s inspection needs to keep pace with an increase in business, and to help the company maintain its reputation for the quality of its work, two Xtreme CNC CMMs from Gloucestershire-based Aberlink Ltd (www.aberlink.com) were recently installed.

Alpha Precision’s quality manager, Rob Allen, said: “Given the nature of the industrial sectors we serve, the quality of our output is our number-one priority.

"In addition to first-off checks and regular in-process measurements, the parts and assemblies we produce undergo thorough final inspection routines.

“To enable our staff to monitor the quality of our output throughout all stages of manufacturing, we provide our production personnel and our quality staff with the latest inspection equipment.

"Our first Aberlink CMM — a manual machine — has been easy to use, accurate and ultra-reliable; and as the launch of the Aberlink’s Xtreme CMM’s coincided with a sharp up-turn in our business, we placed an order for two of them.

"These feature temperature compensation and are designed to operate both in inspection departments and on the shopfloor, although we have installed our new Xtreme CMMs in our production facility.

“Both CMMs are now in regular use by our production personnel for in-process inspection checks and for verifying first-offs.

"Rather than lose time taking machined parts to our inspection department, accurate CMM inspection results can be quickly achieved close to the point of manufacture.

This quick feed-back enables adjustments to be made when component sizes start to deviate from nominal conditions.

“Our quality staff also use our new Aberlink CMMs for final inspection routines, as well as other applications; and being CNC allows them to be loaded with batches of machined components, the relevant program selected and a rapid automatic measuring routine started with the press of a button.

"Furthermore, in addition to storing the captured data relating to each measured feature of each component in the batch, we can also generate detailed inspection reports for each component.”

The Xtreme CMM has a novel non-Cartesian structure that features linear motors and mechanical bearings and allows the CMM to maintain high levels of accuracy at very fast measurement rates — and it does not suffer from the cumulative inaccuracies that occur in conventional three-axis Cartesian arrangements.

Moreover, Aberlink says the Xtreme is very easy to use, and that even an inexperienced operator can normally become competent in its use in just one day.

Furthermore, the Xtreme’s integral temperature compensation function ensures that accuracy levels are maintained even when the surrounding ambient temperature is not controlled.

The Xtreme uses Aberlink’s 3-D software, which creates a picture of the component (on the CMM’s computer screen) as it is being measured.