Prototypes, processes and prince regent

For sweet-tooths, the research and development centre at Bosch Siemens Hausgeräte (BSH) sounds like a "Land of Cockaigne": hundreds of cakes are baked there every day. What the test kitchen is to travellers in this medieval mythical land of plenty, the measuring room at BSH is to metrology technicians: a Leitz Reference Xi high-precision coordinate measuring machine in an air-conditioned room ensuring the quality of the prototypes and initial samples of ovens, built -in hobs and microwave appliances.

An enormous number of ceramic hobs, ovens and microwave appliances are tested at the BSH facility in Traunreut, Bavaria. The factory manufactures 800 different models of built-in hobs, 400 ceramic hobs and 40 microwave appliances. Sheet metal is formed into ovens, electronic parts wired up, doors hung, edge trim frames and other decorative elements attached. The happy hobby chef can delight in an almost infinite diversity of functions and designs. From XXL format ovens through self-cleaning variants to cooking by autopilot, there is every possible feature to make life easy in the kitchen.

Progress takes down tolerance barriers
"The design and technology of our ovens and hobs are continuously changing and improving," confirms Florian Huber, Quality Manager Systems. "At the same time the tolerances of individual components are becoming tighter and tighter." Increasing diversity, higher accuracy requirements, larger product dimensions. BSH was reaching the limits with its existing coordinate measuring machine. A new solution for measuring prototypes and initial samples was required.

Ingredients for process approval
"We decided in favour of a Leitz Reference Xi because this coordinate measuring machine offers the best price-performace ratio, the required measurement volume and the necessary dynamics. Increased concentration on processes goes hand in hand with higher demands on procedures for process approval. To be able to cover these higher demands, we required a more powerful measuring machine," says Huber. The accuracy of the Leitz Reference Xi is MPEE = 1.8 + L/350 microns, i.e. it can measure a length of 1 metre to an accuracy of only 4.7 microns. The LSP-X5 probe head captures 1000 measured points per second. . . . . . .