Aberlink Agree Technology Partnership with Norton Motorcycles

Following the conclusion of a multi-million pound deal the famous Norton motorcycle brand returned to British ownership in 2009. Already the owner of Norton Racing Ltd, UK based businessman and entrepreneur Stuart Garner purchased all of the trademarks to the celebrated Norton, Manx, Atlas, Commando and Dominator brands. Wasting no time in fulfilling the latent, global demand for Norton bikes, Stuart has exploited the outstanding design talent available at Norton Racing and enlisted the expertise of renowned F1 engine builders, MCT. The fruits of this technical development partnership are the company's new, state-of-the-art road bike series of 961cc Norton Commando machines.

To enable the burgeoning operation to satisfy the world-wide consumer demand for their advanced new road bikes, and to ensure that the company's racing team have the best available production and development facilities, Norton have made a substantial investment in equipping their Donington Park based, 15000 sq foot headquarters and manufacturing facility with the best possible equipment. To help keep pace with the high output from Norton's impressive range of Hardinge CNC Machine Tools, an advanced Axiom Too Coordinate Measuring Machine has recently been installed as part of Norton's Technology Partnership deal with the largest UK owned CMM manufacturer, Aberlink Innovative Metrology.

Aberlink's Axiom Too CMM can truly be described as the complete Inspection Centre; high measuring accuracies are achieved through the use of the latest metrology techniques and advanced in-house manufacturing methods. The machine boasts an all aluminium bridge resulting in a very low thermal mass, rendering it ideal for use either in controlled environments or within less than perfect shop-floor conditions. Thanks to the Axiom Too's use of advanced materials, the machine's reduced inertia results in class leading speed of operation. Utilising technology, borrowed from the Aerospace industry, the Axiom Too's component support consists of an advanced granite/aluminium honeycomb construction, providing natural damping and further improving the machine's thermal properties. Despite the Axiom Too's generous measuring volume of 640x900x500, the machine's compact design occupies a relatively small footprint, with its controller and peripherals housed within the Axiom Too's workbench.

Enthusing about the many benefits the new Axiom Too had brought to the company, Stuart Garner, CEO of Norton Motorcycles reports. "Our Aberlink CMM has allowed us to move our World Super Bike, rotary engine development program forward much more efficiently. With great ease, we can now very accurately, and equally importantly, quickly measure the effects of testing on our engines. After measuring the 3D geometry of our components before we assemble them into an engine, we put the engine under test. This may be an endurance test, a simulation of a range of various environments, race conditions tests, or any number of other scenarios. On completion of the tests, we totally strip the engine down and return the components to the CMM, allowing the machine to very accurately determine any dimensional variations caused by wear or distortion. This invaluable information is then fed back into our computer based design process, enabling future improvements to our engine design, with the overall goal of achieving maximum performance potential. The main benefit the Aberlink CMM brings is the ease, speed and accuracy in which we can now complete these important stages of our engine development process. Our experienced engineers are specialist in engine design and development, therefore we require a system which is user friendly, gives rapid streams of pertinent information, while offering all the advanced functionality we need.

Used throughout the company's range of products, Aberlink's 3-D Windows based, intuitive software, was designed purposefully around a graphical interface, unlike comparable packages with graphics that can best be described as a software afterthought. A welcome bi-product of any Aberlink CMM inspection routine is that a simultaneous picture of the measured component is created on the computer screen. Dimensions between the measured features, mirroring those that appear on the component drawing, are then picked off as required. In essence Aberlink's 'smart' software represents an intelligent measuring system that is able to automatically recognise and define the various features being measured. Aberlink 3D is claimed to be the easiest to use CMM software currently available, so much so, a complete novice is usually able to perform relatively involved measurement routines after just 5 minutes training.

Impressed by the Axiom Too's easy to use software and the machine's fast CNC capability, Steve Bower, Manufacturing Manager at Norton Motorcycles machining facility said. "We are rapidly increasing production and working around the clock to meet order books for the 961 Commandos. When the Aberlink CMM arrived we had a backlog of parts to inspect, but because the machine's software is extremely user friendly, it took very little time to create all the required inspection programs. As our Axiom Too is a full CNC machine, we can now simply put follow-on batches of parts on to the machine bed and they are inspected automatically, and when checking smaller components, we are able to load multiple parts at one time. Although I have little previous experience of programming a CMM, I have been amazed at how quickly I have been able to master even relatively complicated measuring procedures. Aberlink's 3D software creates it's own programmed path and a model of the part as you measure it, the program generated by the software can then be ran as a conventional CMM program. In additional to being an invaluable tool for the development of prototype work, the Axiom Too is incredibly versatile and takes almost no programming time at all, making it the perfect inspection tool for our Manufacturing facility."

Aberlink 'Inject' Speed & Accuracy Into Delphi Process

With a global Headquarters in Troy, Michigan, at the heart of America's largest automotive manufacturing area, in addition to being involved in a multitude of other industrial sectors, Delphi is one of the world's largest automotive parts manufacturers. Reflecting the global nature of its business, the company operates 138 wholly owned manufacturing sites, 36 joint ventures, and 28 technical centres located in 34 countries.

Delphi boasts extensive experience in high-pressure fuel injection technology and has developed several innovative design and control strategies to meet customer's requirements for cost competitive, low noise systems that provide accurate injection over the life of an engine. The company is the world's second largest supplier of diesel technologies and has a strong position in the light duty, medium duty and heavy duty segments, covering everything from low-cost light vehicles for developing markets, up to high-technology common rail and Electronic Unit Injector (EUI) systems for the world's most sophisticated passenger cars, trucks and off-highway vehicles. One of several company manufacturing plants situated in the UK, Delphi's Stonehouse, Gloucestershire, facility specialises in the high-precision manufacture of EUIs for heavy duty applications, helping vehicle and engine manufacturers around the world to meet increasingly demanding emissions legislation.

Delphi's advanced EUI comprises an individual camshaft-plunger pump for each cylinder, that is capable of delivering fuel at very high pressures (up to 2500 bar). These high injection pressures are absolutely essential to enable engines to meet current and future emissions legislation, but require incredible manufacturing tolerances – often in the sub-micron region. Delphi's ingenious EUI systems incorporate full electronic control, with pilot injection being employed to reduce noise. Ensuring optimum operation efficiency, sensors located around the engine feed a continuous stream of data to the Engine Control Unit (ECU) which calculates the exact amount fuel to be injected and the timing of its delivery.

In accordance with the company's philosophy of continuous improvement, an international truck manufacturer recently challenged Delphi Stonehouse to tighten the geometric tolerances on the interface between the EUIs from 100 µm to 30 µm.

Exceeding drawing requirements, and beyond the inherent capability of the processes involved, the new increased tolerance demanded a revaluation of the manufacturing and inspection methods involved. The urgency of the request called for a rapid reaction from the customer-focused Stonehouse team. Mindful of the required quick response, a manufacturing and inspection strategy was embarked upon for the high-volume injectors. As an inspection bottle-neck was quickly identified as a major potential difficulty, in consultation with Chris Gay, one of the Delphi Stonehouse's preferred inspection equipment suppliers; several potential gauging solutions were explored. Having deemed dedicated fixtures as being too inflexible, an ideal solution was found in the best selling, Axiom Too Coordinate Measuring Machine from the largest UK owned Coordinate Measuring Machine manufacturer, Aberlink.

Will Johnson, Delphi Stonehouse Quality Manager, takes up the story. "Having rejected several other measurement strategies, the in-depth understanding of our complex and tight-tolerance measuring problem, shown by Aberlink, on our initial approach to them, gave us the confidence to explore their suggested solution. Within a two week period, working closely with Delphi personnel, Aberlink ran injector measurement trials, made minor modifications to their software, successfully completed arduous R&R trials and installed two Axiom Too CNC CMMs within the Stonehouse facility. Mindful of the urgency of our requirements and to further expedite the procurement process, we took advantage of Aberlink's Lease Hire Scheme. As the Aberlink operator interface is relatively simple, we have enjoyed the benefits of a reduced training time, whilst the high speed of our new Aberlink CMMs will enable us to keep up with the current, unit inspection volume of 2000 units per week, and also our projected throughput of 3000 units. It was enlightening to compare the Axiom Too with our existing CMM, that cost 5 times more. We were astonished that our new, less expensive machines delivered similar levels of accuracy, whilst considerably out-performing the more expensive CMM when it came to the speed of inspection routines."

Despite the prevailing economic conditions, Aberlink has continued to enjoy excellent global sales within the small and medium CMM market. "Our strategy of providing high quality products, that are affordable, accurate and above all easy to use, has enabled Aberlink to grow organically to become the largest UK owned CMM manufacture. New initiatives, such as our generous Machine Leasing Scheme, have enabled customers to continue to obtain our CMMs at a time of restricted liquidity".

Always at the forefront of CMM innovation, Aberlink has recently completed installation of several specialist machining centres at its worldwide headquarters in Gloucester. In-house manufacturing is an investment Aberlink has always believed in, not only to control cost but more importantly to ensure the most appropriative equipment and process are used to manufacture the key components it uses to build machines. Every Aberlink CMM's boast a high-grade aluminium bridge incorporating premium quality air bearings ensuring optimum performance across a range of environments, including less than perfect shop-floor conditions. Whilst ingenious integration of the machine electronics into the CMM frame, rather than a separate desk unit, has resulted in Aberlink machines boasting the smallest footprint of any equivalent size machine.

Popular throughout the world, Aberlink's revolutionary 3D measurement software provides the user with a powerful, yet easy to use interface, substantially increasing new users' component through-put, whilst greatly shortening their software leaning period. Aberlink's flexible 3D metrology software package has been developed as a multi-platform solution, in addition to supporting both manual and CNC CMM's, it can also be used on portable arms, vision systems, video machines and profile projectors.