At Le Creusot, dimensional inspection of test pieces is going digital

A test piece is a sample of steel taken from the solid part of a forging or casting and machined to be used for the purposes of a given mechanical test. Before being sent to an in-house laboratory on the Le Creusot site - the Vulcain laboratory - the test pieces are inspected one by one. The time spent on this precise dimensional inspection has just been reduced considerably whilst gaining in reliability.

Time savings and increased reliability
At the end of 2017, the Le Creusot site invested in a new machine which makes it possible to take measurements and re-transcribe them automatically. This easy-to-use tool transfers all the data into an Excel table which is then used directly in the test report. A few minutes is all it now takes. Compared to an hour previously.

Before its operational deployment, the machine and the new dimensional inspection procedures were presented to the site's main customers and to the inspectors.

"We are saving time and above all improving reliability by no longer having to do a large amount of re-transcriptions by hand. This is allowing us to take a real step up in terms of productivity and quality" explains David Denoyelle, Machining Manager on the Le Creusot site.