Ahhhhh
It's kinda like driving a drone.
I am Jay Elepano.
We are on our way to Bochingen, Germany.
Where we are going to walk through the ZEISS facility,
where we make the MMZ and CMMs.
We also refurbish some of our older CMMS.
So, here we go guys. Are you ready to go on this tour with me?
Alright…well, let's see what kind of trouble we can get into.
They say that somewhere in this building there might be the largest CMM built, today.
We are going to find out whether that's true or not. I don't know…but I guess we'll find out.
Okay, well...there is a lot of machines here. Let's talk a little bit about this facility.
Here, apparently they can make these big CMMs. Up to 8 meters long, 10 meters long and 3.5 meters tall.
This one back here is already 3.5 meters tall.
It's a big, big boy.
This facility here has climate controlled conditions.
It allows a perfect temperature to make these high temperature accuracy machines.
And of course this foundation is solid and goes several meters deep to make sure it's good and stable.
What do you need all of this for?
Well, some particular applications that can use this machine are of course for example wind turbine bearings.
Think about these big windmills now. You need a machine of these sizes.
In the aero space industry these machines are utilized primarily to make sure that everything is safe.
So, these are two really good industries that particulary look to ZEISS,
to have these high accuracy, large volume machines
Now we are talking about accuracy.
Let's mention the fact that these machines, for the most part, are around 6 microns in accuracy.
The human hair is 100 microns..
So, these machines are accurate to roughly 6 microns. So that's about a tenth or less of the human hair.
Alright, everybody. I think we have messed around for enough time.
Let's go into the next hall and see what's over there.
Now, look at that!
Ahhhhh
It's like a brand new PRISMO from 1910.
Just like it's of the showroom floor.
But…it's almost 20 years old.
It's like I am looking at a vintage car that has been fully refurbished and fully made brand new.
Although it looks like this stepped right out of 20 years ago, dont be fooled.
This thing has been totally redone.
All new hoses, the granit has been cleaned off.
All new cabling, all new wiring.
This thing is brand new.
The team here goes through everything with a fine tooth comb.
And when this machine leaves it is a vintage designed new CMM.
This one is ready to go home to it's new owner.
About 50 of these run through this facility every year.
They do a lot of work and get a lot of machines running through here.
Quite a bit actually.
Alright y'all. Thanks for spending time with me at the facility here in Bochingen.
It's been really interesting for me to walk through all of this and see where all of these machines are made.
I don't know about you, but I've got a three hour drive back to Aalen.
Well, ok it's the Autobahn. So about 2.5 hours.
But I'm getting out of here.
We will see you guys next time. Cheers!