FARO’s ‘Strong Arm’ approach to precision

Given the Oil & Gas industry’s challenging precision standards and the harsh environments it operates in, few if any global sectors place the same severe demands on its measuring equipment. Owing to the impressive accuracy specification and the robust nature of the FARO family of portable Coordinate Measuring Machines, the company’s products are used throughout the world in this most challenging of industries. L&N Scotland typifies the quality-conscious Oil & Gas sector manufacturers that rely on the accuracy provided by FARO’s durable ScanArm inspection equipment.

Headquartered in the Oil & Gas capital of Europe; Aberdeen, L&N Scotland is a leading manufacturer of subsea production flow spools, chemical injection lines, and control systems equipment. Given the safety-critical nature of its manufactured products, the quality of the ISO 9001 registered business’ output is all important. To provide greater control of its production processes and to help the company to maintain “Critical to Quality (CTQ)” product attributes, L&N Scotland’s staff perform a comprehensive range of inspection activities.

The mainstays of L&N Scotland’s inspection regime are its recently-purchased FARO Quantum^S ScanArms. The three advanced ScanArms were bought in accordance with the business’ policy of regularly updating its inspection equipment.

L&N Scotland Quality Engineer, Robert Knowles explained, “L&N Scotland has in-depth experience in engaging in engineering collaborations with the global subsea sector. As we operate in a fiercely-competitive and ever-changing industrial sector, we are committed to continually adapting to best meet our customers’ evolving needs and to provide them with the highest quality products and services. In addition to our quest for constant improvements, our growing production volumes recently prompted the purchase of our new FARO Quantum^S ScanArms.

“As the equipment is very accurate and stands up well to the rigours of shop-floor use, we have been enthusiastic users of FARO products for several years. Although our previously-used portable FARO CMMs were still serviceable and able to meet our challenging dimensional and tolerance demands, when launched, the improved precision, speed, and ease of use of the Quantum^S ScanArm convinced us to bring our inspection technology and related software right up to date.

“Our three Quantum^S ScanArms are now in constant use. The impressive technical advancements in FARO’s latest generation of ScanArms have enhanced our precision capabilities and considerably speeded up our inspection throughput.”

Although L&N Scotland’s new Quantum^S ScanArms have delivered significant benefits to several company departments, it is in the area of subsea control system manufacturing that they have provided the biggest advantages. L&N Scotland QC Inspector, Adrian Chalmers added, “We produce complex, pre-manufactured, subsea control system kits that feature a huge number of very long pipes. The turnkey kits’ pipes feature intricate compound 3D shapes with challenging dimensional tolerances. Further complication things, the pipes are located in close proximity to each other.

“High-precision inspection is vital as our kits are dispatched across the globe, and on arrival the various pipes are expected to connect and assemble without the need for re-work or adjustment. As some of our pipes are over 10ft in length, the smallest angular error at one end of a long pipe has the potential to cause an inaccuracy that can be measured in inches at the opposite end, allowing it to foul a neighbouring pipe. Therefore, to guarantee ease of assembly and to make sure that no pipe-to-pipe contact occurs, part of my duties is to ensure that all of our pipes are efficiently and precisely manufactured and also carefully inspected.

“As it was the ideal combination for our requirements, we specified our three new FARO ScanArms fitted with FARO Prizm Laser Probes. Since we have been using our new FARO hardware and software we have made excellent progress in the area of subsea control system pipe manufacturing and inspection.

“As the pipes in our kits can spring and flex under physical inspection, the extremely accurate non-contact scanning capabilities of our new Quantum^S ScanArms have provided us with a major advantage. We can now precisely scan the most complex shaped tubes and compare our findings to their CAD models, then if needed, we are able to instantly send any required bending correction information back to our CNC bending machine. Also, when required we can now reverse engineer existing pipes and create precise models for future use.

“In addition to ensuring the premium quality of our pipes, our new FARO hardware and software has vastly improved our efficiency levels and has helped to reduce our subsea control system manufacturing lead times.”

The Quantum^S ScanArms, as purchased by L&N Scotland, represent an extremely durable and precise, all-in-one measurement solution. In addition to using tactile probes, the advanced ScanArms are fitted with FARO Prizm Laser Probes. To aid ease and speed, users are able to switch between each of these probing elements without needing to remove either component. For example, it is possible to digitise simple component features with the ScanArm’s hard probe, then seamlessly laser scan freeform areas.  Unlike less able systems, FARO’s cutting-edge non-contact solution enables high-precision scanning to be carried-out on diverse surface materials regardless of contrast, reflectivity or part complexity, without the need for the application of special coatings or target placements.

The accuracy specifications for the Quantum ScanArm product line-up is certified according to ISO 10360-8 for non-contact CMMs. FARO is the first portable measurement arm manufacturer to publish its non-contact accuracy specifications according to this standard.

As Quantum ScanArms provide point cloud capture with impressive speed and high accuracy, they are ideal for a wide range of demanding inspection and quality control tasks. In addition to providing a perfect solution for point cloud comparison with CAD, the advanced ScanArm is ideal for tasks such as rapid prototyping, reverse engineering and the 3D modelling of free-form surfaces.

Complementing the company’s renowned hardware, FARO’s easy to use CAM2 software is a powerful, intuitive 3D measurement platform that helps users to efficiently perform quality assurance and inspection tasks. The feature-rich, application-focused software is able to manage repeat inspection routines and provide live trend and statistical process control (SPC) analysis. As Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing (GD&T) is increasingly included in Oil & Gas related drawings, it helps L&N Scotland that this important feature is also included in FARO’s CAM2 software.

Robert Knowles concluded. “The training provided by FARO UK, along with our Quantum ScanArm’s ease of use, meant that our operators were able to make use of our new FARO equipment’s range of capabilities in a very short time. Our new ScanArms have provided us with an all-inclusive, fast, accurate, contact and non-contact metrology solution. Whilst also further improving our already impressive accuracy capabilities, the use of our ScanArms has enabled us to considerably simplify and speed-up numerous inspection activities.”