Press Releases
TechJet Aerofoils and Nextec Technologies announce a worldwide breakthrough for In-line Blade Measurement and Inspection
Jerusalem, January 13, 2004 - TechJet Aerofoils Ltd. and Nextec Technologies 2001 Ltd., a fully owned subsidiary of WizCom Technologies Ltd. (WizCom) (Prime Standard: WZM, IL 0010830706), are proud to announce the successful installation of Nextec's innovative WIZblade solution on TechJet's production floor. WIZblade is Nextec's new laser scanning solution for turbine blade inspection, and it positions Nextec as a leader in this field. Using the new WIZblade kits, TechJet's quality control specialists are now able to measure and inspect turbine blades in-line in a fraction of the time of a conventional CMM based system. TechJet will integrate these systems in its new extensive project for small and precise blades as well as for its large compressor blades.
"A complete quality control procedure that until today lasted eight hours while implying a conventional CMM with a touch probe, now takes only 55 minutes," says Ronen Navick, TechJet's General Manager. "We are now able to double our throughput, to overcome bottlenecks at the quality control stage and to ensure a faster delivery to our customers while testing a higher sample rate of the products".
"We are offering the most advanced blade inspection solution in the market to all blade manufacturers and MRO (Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul) companies, both for finished (machined) and unfinished (forged or cast) blades", says Danny Shacham, Nextec's President. "Thanks to its technical expertise and infrastructure, Nextec succeeded to develop a breakthrough solution based on our WIZprobe laser probe, Nextec's premium motion controller and a user-friendly turn-key WIZblade software."
The entire inspection process for a new blade type includes the blade CAD model input, cross sections selection definitions, Automatic Blade Alignment, transformation of coordinate system into blade orientation (i.e., the stacking axis becomes the Z-axis in space), measurement of the relevant cross sections and actual deviations from the CAD model.
A typical Automatic Blade Alignment Time is 50 seconds and each full cross section scanning (double-sided) takes eight seconds only. During the scanning process, the system records the numerical data in real-time and displays measurement results on the screen. The data is automatically compared to the designed values and to the required tolerances. Thus, the measurement results and quality control reports are generated in a real time.
The WIZblade kit can serve as a turn-key solution with its own platform or can be mounted on an existing CMM platform. Every WIZblade Kit mounted on existing CMM platform eliminates the need in purchasing additional CMMs.
About TECHJET
TechJet Aerofoils Ltd., a world leader in the development and manufacture of compressor Aerofoils, is a joint venture owned by Rolls-Royce Plc., the Wertheimer Group and BTL Ltd. Based in Tefen Industrial Park in northern Israel, the company manufactures up to 500,000 aerospace compressor blades per year. The company was founded in 1999 with a major goal to significantly reduce end-user price and manufacturing cost for aerospace blades while maintaining top quality, precision on time delivery and full production floor automation
About NEXTEC
Nextec is a fully owned subsidiary of WizCom Technologies Ltd.; Nextec specializes in 3D, non-contact scanning, quality control and inspection technologies. Nextec has developed and patented a revolutionary 3D scanning technology that combines laser, innovative optics and image processing with real time adaptive control. These serve to overcome the fundamental problems of measuring different materials, shiny surfaces, different colors, surface finish and angles, without the need for manual recalibration.
For further information please contact:
Nextec Technologies 2001 Ltd.
2 HaEtgar Street, 39120 Tirat Hacarmel, Israel, Tel: +972-4-8571308 Ext. 104, Fax: +972-4-8571435
shacham@nextec-wiz.com