Case Study: Volkswagen AG achieves faster, more precise machine tool calibration with Hexagon's LASERTRACER-NG

Safeguarding precision Ensuring machine tool performance in automotive manufacturing

Volkswagen AG's Wolfsburg plant, the world's largest car manufacturing complex, faced a critical challenge in maintaining the high precision of its machine tools following incidents like collisions. Unexpected disruptions and the limitations of traditional calibration tools, such as dial gauges, threatened production and made it difficult to quickly diagnose and correct geometric deviations in their milling machines. To address this, they partnered with Hexagon and implemented its ETALON LASERTRACER-NG system.

The solution from Hexagon uses a laser-based system to perform a comprehensive geometric analysis of machine tools in approximately 30 minutes for a verification check and about two hours for a full volumetric compensation. This process, which is far faster than previous methods that took up to two weeks, allows the maintenance team to identify deviations with submicrometre accuracy and generate compensation data for the machine controllers. The results were highly impactful: Hexagon's technology enabled Volkswagen to reduce machine deviations by up to 90%, improving accuracy on some machines from 80 µm to just 5 µm. This led to significantly higher machine availability, the prevention of production standstills, the elimination of costly external service providers, and the production of higher-quality parts without rework.

Volkswagen AG

Jens Melahn

TE Maintenance Mechanics / Machine Tools