aerospace

Aerospace: Mission accomplished

From pilot to reference customer – Starrag ensures precision without compromises with ZEISS solution.

Starrag develops and produces manufacturing solutions for the aerospace industry. In order to shorten the measuring times for turbine blades, the Swiss company was the first in the world to work with the ZEISS PRISMO fortis coordinate measuring machine as part of a pilot project.

Customers react with fascination and great amazement when they see how accurately and quickly turbine blades can be measured on a ZEISS PRISMO fortis with ZEISS CMM Acceleration Mode for Aerospace Applications. Roland Ziltener, Plant Director at Starrag AG, Rorschacherberg, understands the amazement of his colleagues. “Speed and maximum precision didn’t go together for a long time.” In the aerospace industry, where components such as turbine blades have to be fully inspected after each production step, “quality assurance therefore quickly becomes a bottleneck.” Using more measuring devices is not a solution for Ziltener. “To ensure reliable and profitable production, you need very fast and reliable feedback as to whether the components meet the high quality requirements.”

“ Starrag has set new standards in quality assurance with this pilot project in an industry that requires the highest precision in production and quality control.”

Roland Ziltener, Plant Director, Starrag

“ Despite the shorter measuring time, the precision is maintained without any compromises.”

Roland Ziltener, Plant Director, Starrag

Simple and understandable

Quality is “produced and not just measured”, Ziltener likes to quote a former colleague. Starrag therefore does not just rely on a simple good/bad evaluation of the workpieces. Instead, it relies on high-quality feedback to determine machine performance.

 

New standards in quality assurance

For Ziltener, Starrag has set new standards in quality assurance with this pilot project in an industry that requires the highest precision in production and quality control. For him, having been involved in the measurement of turbine blades since 2008, the collaboration with ZEISS was and is “a real success story”. A view that Nytsch also shares. Both are therefore certain that “the next pilot project will come.”

The pilot project showed that productivity in the measurement of turbine blades can be significantly increased with ZEISS PRISMO fortis.

LX 021 Turbine blade in one go from forged blank for aerospace turbines