A trusting partnership

A delegation from the Chinese subsidiary WENZEL Measuring Machines Shanghai visited the Dadong BMW Brilliance Automotive (BBA) plant in the city of Shenyang, Liaoning Province, a few days ago. The plant provides state-of-the-art automotive manufacturing processes for the production of the new generation BMW 5 Series Li, among others. It features BMW's advanced manufacturing technologies as well as logistics, production and quality management systems at the highest level. In expanding the plant, BMW once again worked hand in hand with its long-standing partner WENZEL in the area of metrology .

"When we reviewed the performance of various measuring machines in the initial stage, we paid particular attention to the stability of machines and the ease of use of the software. Compared to other manufacturers' systems, the measuring machines from WENZEL imported from Germany fully met our requirements," explains Mr. Zhang, Manager in the Quality Analysis Center at BBA.

Another competitive advantage of WENZEL was its ability, as a family-owned company, to respond quickly and flexibly to user and market demand. WENZEL develops tailored measurement solutions based on a precise understanding of user needs. It was finally decided to use a total of six RA-series horizontal arm coordinate measuring machines (CMMs) and one underfloor horizontal arm-CMM RUF to ensure the quality of the finished vehicles. The RUF-CMM is able to directly measure the entire lower part of a workpiece without lifting the product. This saves a lot of time for users, whether measuring a single component, an assembly part or the entire vehicle.

"WENZEL's measurement systems have been used by us for several years. They have helped us solve many size and function measurement and analysis problems in both the project implementation phase and the mass production phase. The accurate and reliable metrology from WENZEL has been an important contribution to the market expansion of our products," says Zhang, continuing, "The RA-Duplex combined with the RUF is the most commonly used measurement system at our company. It is used to test at least 150 vehicles per year, operating at almost full load. The other RA series duplex systems are also used very frequently at our company and there are no problems during operation. This saves us a lot of costs in customer service and spare parts procurement."

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Zhang is also very satisfied with the service provided by WENZEL . This includes the software training as well as the after-sales service from WENZEL. He says he communicates effectively with the service technicians, and they have also provided very good support for calibration and maintenance, ensuring the reliable operation of measuring machines . Currently, WENZEL 's solution at BMW Brilliance Automotive's (BBA) plant consists mainly of tactile coordinate measuring machines. But BBA also plans to use optical sensors in the near future. "We are looking forward to the new development of optical measurement systems from WENZEL and to deepening our cooperation ", Zhang is positive about the future.

"The precise and reliable metrology of WENZEL was an important contribution to the market expansion of our products"