Curious about how to catalyze the digital thread with feedback loops made possible by MBD plus QIF to establish an interoperable and automatable Bill of Characteristics (BoC)?
At our June 28, 2022 QIF Tech Series Coffee Chat (1), Action Engineering CEO Jennifer Herron demonstrated how the Quality Information Framework Version (QIF) 3.0 defines the BoC as a list of all the characteristics applied to a product. If your team is working hard to create good GD&T as 3D annotations that robustly enable your producers the flexibility to fabricate your products while still maintaining your design requirements, that good data demands good interoperability. Model-Based Definition (MBD) is 3D CAD data that is digitally authored to be used automatically by manufacturing and quality engineers and planners to speed up fabrication and inspection in a highly accurate way. You must have the part built the right way while keeping costs low. That’s what GD&T was invented for. Now MBD leverages QIF to make that process digital; speeding up time to market and decreasing quality escapes.
Jennifer shared in an earlier Action Engineering news article how to maximize the QIF standard:
“Leveraging the modern QIF standard, the information in the annotations automatically populates the Bill of Characteristics, so all that data re-entry goes away. Then we take the semantic PMI, the associated geometry with its annotations, and . . . with a click of a button . . . program a CMM machine, or automatically do quality data analysis. For point-cloud data like CT scanning, we can overlay the CT scan data on our MBD model.” (2)
This is very cool technology, and no doubt saves time and money during production, but what about your people? Jennifer talked about that benefit too. These 3D data transformation techniques increase communication between typically siloed departments, such as Engineering and Quality. Studies show that companies and organizations that communicate effectively are 4.5 times more likely to retain the best employees. Who doesn’t want to implement innovative technology while attracting and retaining the best talent?
How does this benefit your business? You can expect:
• Increased product quality by eliminating human error due to manual data re-entry
• Increased use, re-use, and automation of 3D CAD data
• Increased product throughput during First Article Inspection activities
• Increased employee communications using digital twin techniques, thereby increasing employee retention.
If you have questions about the role QIF plays in the digital thread, contact DMSC Executive Director Mark Thomas, mark.thomas@qifstandards.org.
Sources:
1) Learn How to Use the Bill of Characteristics BoC as Your Digital Twin Catalyst, by Jennifer Herron, YouTube July 12, 2022
2) Model-Based Definition (MBD) and QIF, by Jennifer Herron April 11, 2022
