Choosing a Manufacturing Career

How Can Dimensional Inspection Labs Help Your Small Company?

If your company is regularly creating metal or plastic pieces for machines or appliances, knowing the pieces are of high quality is vital. You might be currently using your own team to do quality control, but as more pieces are manufactured and designs become more complex, you might consider using dimensional inspection labs instead. How can these labs help?

Completing First Article Inspection

Above all, your pieces need to fit into the appliance or machine you made them for. For that to occur, the pieces need to have the right measurements and proper tolerances. These issues are sometimes resolved during 3-D CAD modeling, but being able to reconcile the design with the actual manufactured piece is important. In a process called first article inspection, a dimensional inspection lab can do just that. They will check the dimensions of your pieces against your team's intentions and designs.

Avoiding Bad Batches

Because of first article inspection, a lab can save your company money and time by preventing the manufacture of bad batches. If the lab finds a flaw in the design or another problem, you won't have to order an entire batch of pieces only to find that they're all wrong. Being able to have "other eyes" looking at your team's work should lead to more pieces that are just the way you wanted them to be.

Quality Control

When you need to have uniform pieces, it can be a challenge to ensure every single piece meets the requirements you had in place. This is even more challenging when you have multiple orders and multiple batches. Allowing an inspection lab to take over that portion of the work will free up your team for other things and will give you confidence that uniformity exists throughout a single batch.

Complying With Government Regulations

Local and federal governments usually have some restrictions and regulations that apply to plastics and metals. Those rules are always being updated and streamlined, and your team might miss a new regulation or changes to existing restrictions. Rather than paying fines because you weren't aware of new or changing rules, consider using a dimensional inspection lab. Their personnel are always aware of regulations and know which apply to your specific company.

A dimensional inspection lab can be a great partner for your manufacturing company. Be sure to explore labs in the area to find a lab that has experience with your kind of business.


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