Greg Holdsworth with Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Hexagon Live, industrial talk, Greg Holdsworth, autonomous metrology, measurement science, CNC integration, digital twin, quality control, manufacturing intelligence, innovation, collaboration, education, technology solutions, low volume production.

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Hey, industrial professionals, before we get into the show, I want you to be aware of a free ebook that we have out on industrial talk. It takes and expands upon the five. These are common five elements that make companies successful. This is it. One, they educate. Two, they collaborate. Three, they innovate. Four, they invest in the culture of the organization. And then five are able to, in an effective way, communicate to the masses of what they do ineffective way. Those are the five elements. That's what the book expands upon. Go out to industrial talk, download it, and while you're at it, get the free workbook too as well. Now on to the show.

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Welcome to the industrial talk podcast with Scott. MacKenzie Scott is a passionate industry professional dedicated to transferring cutting edge industry focused innovations and trends while highlighting the men and women who keep the world moving. So put on your hard hat, grab your work boots, and let's go. Hey

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19 years now. Shut

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the front door. You're old. I know everybody I talked to has been little less

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Yeah, check it out. And what do you

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do? I'm the portfolio manager for autonomous metrology suite, which is a bunch of applications autonomous, autonomous metrology suite,

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metrology, yeah, metrology, metrology. Am I right? Explain what Metrology

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is. Okay. I can do that in just a couple of sentences, because Metrology is the science of measurement. There you go

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see, and that's been the theme of hexagon live absolutely keynote. Had that whole measurement thing down pat. Was pretty by the way, it's pretty cool. Thank you. Thank you. You were part of that. No, no, no. I thought it was just and it made sense. It just made complete absolutely, yeah, I love it all right. Just outside of that, give us a little bit more background on who you are.

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I am Greg Holtz. I'm from the UK. I've been with several hexagon now for almost 20 years. Started out in the shop floor in manufacturing, found my way into inspection, programming, CMMS. As I said, I joined hexagon as an application engineer. So you know, I've been on the tools, let's say, and worked my way through to product management, which is where I am today, on our cloud solutions.

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Okay, here's the deal. Take us through this tech. We've got this sort of 3d printed product. It sort of looks just it looks just like that. Take us through, what do we what makes this so important?

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Okay? Today, with classic software to take drawing intent, yes, and turn that into real world results as some challenges that customers have, really we're trying to nail down three things, skill, speed and standardization. Skill. There's an ongoing reduction in engineering manufacturing, more specifically, in general, in terms of the number of people out there and good people out there to employ. When you look at a niche like metrology, it's even more exaggerated. So we're looking to make things easier to do. If I write a program and a night shift guy writes a program, we'll get different results, right, because human error. So if I'm writing a program to measure this part, I might get a different program, as I said, maybe just two microns difference, three microns. But some of their parts we're measuring down to those kinds of values, right? Things have got to be standardized. And of course, everybody wants to do everything quicker all the time, right? So they're the challenges that we're trying to I'm trying to address with the autonomous metrology suite.

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How does that? How it seems okay. Don't get mad at me, but this is the only word that can come up. It looks like a CAD drawing. But how does, how does your solution allow me to be faster, more precise, and the quality just better.

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Okay, I keep it really simple and brief. We've imported the model and all of the drawing intent, the drawing requirements, the engineering requirements, are embedded in the model. So we've got no piece of paper, yeah, no PDF to sit there with a marker pen and mark off dimensions, like we used to do when I started, at least. So we can assume that the designer said, Okay, I want everything correct in the model. We bring it into the software. It populates all of the measurements for us so the user doesn't really need to do anything, yeah. The software then decides, Okay, I want to measure the flatness of this face, for example, to be the cool out there. It decides the most appropriate way to measure that face based on the geometry and the available hardware. Okay, so we understand the digital twin of the machine. So we say, okay, measure this part. We press generate program. The software goes away. It adds all of the machine movements, all of the points or scans that needed to be done. So it comes down to, again, the speed. There's no human doing it. We got that standardization because it doesn't matter whether I click those buttons or you click those buttons, the program's always exactly the same. And then, of course, there's zero code end to end, no code environment. So the skill for the tech is,

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does this interface with the CNC or a machine? How do you take it from here to here to ensure the quality of this is, is that which is, seems like it is,

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yeah. So it's already been on a CNC, or, in this case, a three degree so we would validate that using the CMM. So we got a CMM over there. I'm not sure if you've been there, but ultimately, the coordinate measuring machine, yeah. So we, you know, we bolt this thing to the table, perhaps, and then the machine would come away. And I can show you a simulation shortly, actually, of the machine running and measuring. And it would come over and it would measure points and plot geometry instead. And they say, Hey, how flat is that face? You know, what's the size of that diameter? And undertake the analysis based on the drawing. Do you want to see a simulation?

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Yes, I want to see a simulation. Cool.

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So. Simulation just two seconds in parts of cool looking part. We use that

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one. Yeah, I want to, because I've seen that machine over there, and it's just constantly just goes through a program of taking that engine block and testing it and measuring it, I would imagine, so

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exactly what it's doing, it's measuring it. Yeah, it's precisely what it's doing. And in order for it to measure it needs a program. Okay? So it needs a human being to sit there and write a program. But what we're doing with this solution is replacing that, that long hand method. You're never going to replace the human being, right? Somebody needs to sit here and press the buttons and right, you know, and and generate the program and understand the GD and t right? It's still, you still need to be a metrologist to use this solution, but there's no, like, long hand coding. You know, it's made it my season, so, so this program has already been generated, but I can show you that we go here so we can see the movements of the machine are in green, and the direction of travel, the measurements on the part are in blue. And again, the directions of travel basically got a video player, and I can just run this simulation. You'll see the machine move in and exactly like you're seeing on physical machine over there. You're seeing the measurement on a digital twin over here.

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Okay, so this is a digital twin of this particular part to ensure that that part meets the specification and the quality standards that are designed, right? And say, Yes, that's it. Then I would take this particular part that's been validated and and then

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produce it. No, it's already been produced by the time it gets to the metrology department. Oh, but we would take this program that's been generated, we're watching this simulation, say, Okay, I'm happy with the program. I know it's not gonna, you know, it's not gonna crash on the machine or anything like that. So once I've watched this simulation, I take this program, I'd walk over to the machine with a physical part, and I'd run this program, and as you've seen over there, the probe would then go around and scan,

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let's go. Let's go. Over there. Let's go. Let's go.

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So actually, they just finished with the tactile probe, which was the probe that you saw over there, actually machine in the simulation. So I think what it's going to do here is pick up, it's going to drop off that tactile probe, and it's going to pick up a laser probe. Okay, a laser scanner. So it said various different sensors can be supported on this machine, both contact and non contact. So as you saw the probe over there, would would come here, and it would touch the part, and it would scan like so this is going to do it with non contact. Okay, so it's going to be capturing millions of points of data very, very fast. Okay, so the laser just initialized there.

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How? Why would you point? Why wouldn't you just go with the laser? Why wouldn't you go with the laser, just in general, right off the bat?

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So if you look at this part, we've got it's tough. We don't want to, we don't want to get in the way of the machine. But there's internal dimensions, so there may be balls laser can only see on the surface. Also, there's an element of accuracy there, so a tactile probe today is still more accurate than a non contact laser scanner. There's amazingly accurate, not as accurate as a as a contact probe, still. So it's two things really, access and accuracy

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does. Does hexagon manufacture

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this thing? Yeah, yeah. This is a brand new machine, Maestro machine, manufactured in Wetzlar in Germany. This is a next generation machine, full digital system. But, yeah, we've been manufacturing machines for as long as I've been with hexagon way before, way before.

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See, I think that there's an interesting just, I always think of hexagon as a software company, okay, but then again, I go around and we listen to what takes place within the keynote, or whatever it is, yeah, you can't help but ask the question about, well, there's somebody manufacturing these physical products. That's just amazing. That hexagon is also part of the manufacture.

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It was, it was, it was the all original OG, when I joined hexagon, it was called Hexagon Metrology, yeah. And we manufactured machines and Inspection Software was created by us, of course. And it was only when we grew through acquisition that we became much wider Hexagon Group as we are now. And of course, the name metrology dropped off

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again. How do you take a company? This is next. This is serious stuff, right? This is, this is ensuring that that engine block meets the specifications as whatever design, which is important. And you hope that once it's doing that, it doesn't come back and say, No, that doesn't work. Hopefully you got that in the digital twin, right? Are able to

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we're verifying that here. So what it's doing on this face is it's measuring various different points. I didn't write the program, so I'm not entirely sure. I'm assuming we're finding out that that face is flat. Similarly, it doesn't matter what we're measuring, really, we're making sure it's the right shape, let's say the right size and shape right. So when it when you bolt this onto a car, it works right? To

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encourage, how do I as a as a company, already have sort of a QC process. I've been using it for a little while. Why would I this is next level stuff. Why? What? What bottom line value does this solution I'm sort of feeding, bring me as a manufacturer, let's say of this block,

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okay, outside of this specific machine, which said the next generation machine, these products are very mature. They've been around for a long time. And one, I'd say this accuracy. You know, there's no some gages are more accurate than CMM. CMMS are more accurate than certain gages, but to measure everything on this long hand, with all my exposition, sign tables, like it used to be, take several days. CMM could measure this part in, you know, half an hour. So because you automate that measurement, it's a no brainer

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how often. Let's just take you through the process. I put the block on here. I validated the measurements. It all works. It all meets the specification. Then do I make the decision? Saying, Okay, now let's just mass produce, or whatever. Let's begin. I feel comfortable with how this is being manufactured. Good. Let's go. It

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low volume but high, highly engineered, absolutely, pieces of equipment.

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Yeah, a race engine doesn't last for that long unless it's very well

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engineered. Exactly. I didn't know that. That was because we got the Hendrix.

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Yeah, they're a partner, right there. Jeez. So what

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do you what's the pushback? What if I was a manufacturer, a CNC shop, what? What's the pushback? I would say that this is a no brainer, does it? It just ensures the quality, just absolutely but what's the pushback? Why wouldn't I want that

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every CNC shop you're going will have a coordinate measuring machine of some description.

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Well, you were wonderful pleasure. It was wonderful. How do people get a hold of you? You out on LinkedIn,

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yeah, I'm on LinkedIn. You can grab me there. Greg holds Earth on LinkedIn, yeah, it's the best way to get hold

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You're listening to the industrial talk Podcast Network,

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heroes, industrial heroes. Greg Holdsworth, hexagon, manufacturing intelligence at hexagon. Live, Las Vegas, yeah, go out to industrial talk. I have a ton of conversations. It's coming from that, that wonderful event. You need it, you need a you want to know what's happening in the future. Yeah, that's all. That's a must. You got to check it out, because you always got to educate, collaborate and innovate. It's right there. All right. Once again, industrial talk is building the platform that is dedicated to you. We want you to be a part of this expanding network of industry leaders, industry professionals. All you have to do is go out to industrial talk. You click, connect with me. You can me and let's have a conversation. Let's get you on the podcast. Let's get you on the network. Be bold. Be brave. Dare greatly. Hang out with Greg. Change the world. We're gonna have another great conversation coming shortly. So stay tuned. You.