Aerospace: Mission Accomplished
From pilot to reference customer – Starrag achieves no-compromises precision with a ZEISS solution
Starrag develops and produces production solutions for the aviation and aerospace industry. As part of a pilot project to shorten the measuring times for turbine blades, the Swiss company became the first company in the world to work with the coordinate measuring machine ZEISS PRISMO fortis.
Pilot projects secure market leadership
The answer to the challenge that the aerospace industry faces — namely, how to measure aviation and aerospace parts with high precision and faster at the same time – was provided by ZEISS when it expanded PRISMO family with the coordinate measuring device ZEISS PRISMO 7/12/7 fortis. This device was equipped with a highly dynamic rotary table, and thanks to ZEISS CMM Acceleration Mode for Aerospace Applications, it has two options (ZEISS VAST Rotary Table (ZVR) and ZEISS VAST Rotary Table Axis (ZVRA)) that allow a fast definition of the rotary table’s axis combined with reliable accuracy.
Fascination for a new solution
Roland Ziltener, the head of quality management at Starrag at the time, still vividly remembers the beginning of the pilot project. “We saw the device in Oberkochen and were immediately excited.” To check whether this new development — despite the enormous reduction in measuring time — could deliver the required precision, all turbine blades that Starrag produced for its partner customers were measured with ZEISS PRISMO fortis over a year and a half. To evaluate the accuracy of ZEISS PRISMO fortis, the measurement results were compared with reference values from ZEISS PRISMO navigator.
Convincing results
Experience indicates that the quality control of turbine blades and blisks accounts for 20% of total production costs and 25% of total production time. This pilot project demonstrated that productivity could be significantly increased by measuring the turbine blades with ZEISS PRISMO fortis. The standard measurement, which lasted 4 minutes and 30 seconds at Starrag and produced accurate and reproducible results, was reduced to 70 seconds during the pilot phase. This time savings “gives us greater flexibility in selecting the parameters and workpieces to be measured, and also helps us optimize our production process,” emphasizes Ziltener.
Simple and easy to understand
Quality is “made, not just measured,” Ziltener likes to say, quoting his former colleague. That is why Starrag does not rely solely on a simple good/bad evaluation of the parts. Even more so, the company relies on qualitatively high-value feedback to determine a machine’s performance.
ZEISS CALYPSO software and ZEISS INSPECT Airfoil analysis and inspection software, specially developed to analyze rotor blades and guide vanes, blisks, and NGVs in gas turbines, help Starrag to interpret the measuring data it collects quickly. And the results are depicted in such an easy-to-understand way “that even non-metrologists immediately understand possible problems,” explains Ziltener. This simplifies communication with suppliers and makes it easier to find a standard solution. The machine operators in the Aerospace & Turbine Competence Center can also quickly identify whether their processes are running smoothly and independently take countervailing measures to correct any possible deviations.
Ziltener is convinced: “In an industry that demands absolute precision in production and quality control, Starrag has set new standards in quality control with this pilot project.”
Roland Ziltener
Plant Director, Starrag AG
“Speed and accuracy were always contradictory for us before we installed the new generation of ZEISS PRISMO fortis.”
