Practically everyone has used a product from carbide specialists CERATIZIT at least once in their lives – 90 per cent of all the balls in ballpoint pens come from this company. For the measurement of carbide cutting inserts, CERATIZIT Austria recently began using an automated measuring cell from Blum-Novotest. This system is special in that the measurements are precise down to the last few micrometres – and this even though each measurement takes less than four seconds.
CERATIZIT Austria's facility is located in the picturesque mountains of Reutte in Tyrol, near the town of Füssen and the border to Germany. But there's little of that Alpine cosiness felt in the facility's production halls – here it's all about maximum precision. The company supplies semi-finished carbide blanks and finished products, with the portfolio being broken down into 'preforms', carbide rods and tool inserts. Preforms are made-to-order carbide parts that are preformed and partly ground, and are then processed by the customer. Carbide rods, for example, are semi-finished products that become drilling or milling tools. Lastly, tool inserts are finished products that are used in milling, lathing, punching or drilling tools.
The portfolio of tool inserts covers around 2,700 standard inserts, which can be ordered via a catalogue. In addition to this there are many more special geometric forms that are made-to-order on the basis of customer specifications. In addition to the inserts, the associated tools are also offered. The portfolio includes numerous types of carbide that provide the ideal combination of properties for any purpose.
Until recently, an old automated measurement system was used to measure the many plates, but it was already being put to the limits of its capacity back in 2011. A new measuring cell was sought out that not only could achieve very short throughput times but was also as compact as possible. At Control, the international trade fair for quality assurance, Daniel Scheiber, CERATIZIT's Quality Officer for the Presses Production Line, discovered the flexible Blum-Novotest's BMK measuring and automation concept for the first time. Scheiber had until then never seen such a compact measuring cell that combined automation and measurement from any other manufacturer.