Process Monitoring for Endoscope Assembly
Endoscopes are used for various clinical and medical applications to enable visual diagnosis and perform minimally invasive procedures. In addition, they are used in narrow and tight openings to provide visual access to hard-to-reach places in various industrial applications in the automotive and aerospace industries. Modern endoscopes are a combination of various technical devices such as illumination, camera and various tools to perform operations. Medical and clinical as well as industrial applications require very precise and accurate manufacturing and assembly of the endoscope components to ensure that no fluids or foreign objects can enter the endoscope housing. This is important for both functional and hygienic reasons. In addition, the endoscope components must be free of damage and debris.
In order to meet the very specific requirements of a quality assurance tool for endoscopes, specification, design and manufacturing of a custom metrology system became necessary. The custom design, implemented for this application, resulted in a 3D interferometric metrology tool with a specialized handling concept, allowing the tool operator to load, measure and unload endoscopes in high frequency while maintaining ergonomic requirements. In addition, the special nature of the required metrology and inspection made necessary the implementation of a customized workflow and result data handling. Acquisition and processing of the data as well as OPC/UA MES communication was realized on the Solarius SolarCore software platform.
To operate the instrument, an endoscope is loaded and a pre-defined measurement sequence is started, referring to the manufacturing Lot ID and part information, obtained by automatic DDM code registration. The individual endoscope QA routines are defined in type-specific measurement configurations that perform all metrology and inspection operations automatically. Inspection results are displayed in a comprehensive and consolidated form, allowing the mold operator to easily make a pass or fail decision. Detailed results information is uploaded to the manufacturing quality database for each endoscope upon completion of the inspection cycle. Traceability is maintained via the part's unique DDM code and Solarius SolarCore FDA-compliant audit trail.
