Knorr-Bremse, headquartered in Munich, manufacture braking systems for rail and commercial vehicles. Knorr-Bremse decided to implement a uniform software platform to coordinate measuring machines from different manufacturers.
Braking systems from Knorr-Bremse play a vital role in safety. This demanded the most stringent quality requirements whose fulfilment during the entire development, production and delivery process had to be ensured.
Knorr-Bremse use different measuring machines from various manufacturers. This includes 3D coordinate measuring machines (CMM), 3D laser trackers, lab equipment for spectral analyses and scanning electron microscopes. Knorr-Bremse utilise these measuring possibilities as part of their TS16949-certified quality management system for the inspection of their braking system components. Until now, the 3D measuring machines used different, manufacturer-specific software which limited their flexibility.
Carl Zeiss offer direct interfaces for non-Zeiss systems to connect to their state-of-the-art CALYPSO measuring software. These interfaces permit the use of CALYPSO on different models of CMMs from various manufacturers. The benefits of this universal software platform were recognised as optimisation potential by the quality assurance department at the Knorr- Bremse factory in Aldersbach.
Knorr-Bremse installed CALYPSO measuring software on all 3D measuring machines in quality assurance, enabling them to generate measuring programmes offline and then run them on CMMs from various manufacturers.
According to Martin Moser, Head of Quality Methodology in Production, Knorr-Bremse, the universal software platform provides an increase in the flexibility of the CMMs and operating personnel. The comparability of measuring results has been improved. Furthermore, programming efforts are reduced and the management of measuring programmes has been simplified. The Carl Zeiss CALYPSO measuring software contributes to Knorr-Bremse to provide customers with zero-defect products.
Knorr-Bremse have planned to implement the Master Control Centre, another innovative product from Carl Zeiss. Components relevant to safety for transportation systems require comprehensive documentation of the manufacturing and quality assurance process. The measurement log archiving module on the Master Control Centre simplifies archiving of these process-relevant documents. Measurement log archiving encompasses all measuring machines used in quality assurance.