Dave Sherrer, Agilent Technologies
Presented June 15, 2000 at the ADCATS 2000 Conference

Tooling of mechanical parts is expensive. Ensuring that the design works as intended the first time is critical for time to market and keeping within budget. Tolerance analysis of key interfaces is one tool for establishing proper part specifications for manufacturing. The tolerance analysis of a new modular test instrument developed at Agilent Technologies is presented.  How the critical interfaces were identified along with the development of the tolerance model from the CAD data is presented. The results and key learnings from the analysis are also discussed.

Dave’s comments:
“The most recent tolerance analysis I performed was for our new portable, modular test and measuring instrument. Most of the parts are hard tooled (expensive tooling) so a critical interface analysis was necessary to ensure that the product met expectations. I created a rather extensive VSA model of the whole mechanical design, along with identifying the critical interfaces and assembly model.”