Quality control

The dual extruding Ultimaker 3!
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LePaul
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Re: Quality control

Post by LePaul »

This reminds me of an old story about the F-86 fighter jet, from the book "Yeager"

Basically, they lost several pilots when their ailerons would lock up while doing rolls close to the deck. The aileron would lock in place and the airplane would auger into the ground, destroying the plane and killing the pilot. Yeager ran into an identical issue but was able to recover when he let up on the G's. He climbed to a higher altitude to test his recovery theory.

After landing a full investigation was under way. Investigators went to the North American Aviation factory where the aircraft was assembled. It turned out, one person on the assembly line was inserting the machine screw upside down causing the aileron to jam.

The order went out to all the bases that had the F-86 to inspect the ailerons on their jets, verifying they were installed correctly.

As his book points out, "Nobody told him how many pilots he had killed"

While we aren't dealing with life or death with an Ultimaker, if one installer is doing it wrong, it could affect several machines he or she has worked on
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jonnybischof
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Re: Quality control

Post by jonnybischof »

This is why I bought my UMO printer as a kit, not fully assembled ^^

For such a complex product, it is so very awfully important to have top-notch assembly infrastructure and personnel (that mostly means an able process manager and a REALLY picky QC).
Overtightened screws? That should never ever be allowed to happen because in a good assembly line there is a preset, fixed torque wrench for every assembly step and the instructions present on every spot must indicate which wrench to use exactly.
Why do I know that? I've had to return lots of units to our production company and learn the hard way that - as an engineer - it is my duty to specify things like this and make instructions for the assembly people to follow :P
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