Huddersfield offers the English version of CMTrain
Thu, 26 Sep 2013 13:56:00 BST
EPSRC advanced metrology centre teams up with institutions across Europe
AS a system for achieving exceptional accuracy in fields such as advanced manufacturing, co-ordinate metrology (CM) is long-established but more useful than ever.
Now the University of Huddersfield – globally respected for its excellence in the science of measurement – is playing a lead role in an innovative training scheme that aims to ensure new levels of industrial expertise in CM.
The University has teamed up with institutions in Germany, Switzerland, Italy and Romania to offer an educational programme known as CMTrain. Participants develop skills and scientific knowledge that will enable them to deploy co-ordinate metrology in any context, whatever machine they are required to operate.
Dr Paul Bills, based in the University of Huddersfield’s EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Advanced Metrology, is in charge of delivery of the English language version of CMTrain. He has worked with UK and Republic of Ireland-based companies, including Hewlett Packard, and has been in talks with U.S. firms.
He explains that CMTrain is a non-machine specific course.
“Generally, when you learn to do co-ordinate metrology you are taught to use a machine by the company that sold it,” he said. By contrast, CMTrain taught the basic principles so that skills and knowledge could be transferred.
“The idea is to provide an accredited ‘driving licence’ for co-ordinate metrology,” added Dr Bills. “CMTrain is a vocational metrology course with a slant towards co-ordinate metrology. It will fit any machine.”
The training package originated in an EU-funded research project. Now, the University of Huddersfield and its European partners are developing and marketing the concept. Dr Bills is a member of the project’s executive board.
There are three levels to CMTrain, ranging from basic knowledge for operators, through to programming skills and all-round expertise.
The training consists of an initial five-day series of sessions at the University of Huddersfield, followed by an on-line learning programme. When required, tutors can be contacted directly via media such as tele-conferencing and Skype. Level One of CM Train takes about 12 weeks of study. The time required for the higher levels increases proportionately.
Co-ordinate metrology – which uses a co-ordinate system to describe the movements of a measuring machine – is used almost universally in manufacturing industries, wherever components must be made to a high degree of accuracy.
“CM was originally publicised by Ferranti in the 1950s,” said Dr Bills. “But even with the advent of new sensors and new forms of metrology, CM is still very highly used and it is incredibly reliable. Many new technologies out there use CM as a baseline for comparison and a lot of international standards are based around it.”
