STOBA Präzisionstechnik's

Since STOBA Präzisionstechnik’s formation in Southern Germany more than 50 years ago the company has grown into a multinational concern, currently employing some 650 workers in four high-tech manufacturing plants located in southern Germany; Yantai in China and Small Dole, UK.

An Injection of Speed and Precision

A major supplier to the Worldwide automotive industry, the company is a recognised leader in the production of high-quality components for the high-pressure fuel injection systems used in diesel engines of cars, trucks and commercial vehicles.

As a dedicated specialist in the manufacture of demanding, tight tolerance parts, Stoba Präzisionstechnik has developed a range of innovative manufacturing processes that enable the highly efficient mass-production of demanding components to the highest quality standards

Located in Small Dole, West Sussex, Stoba Präzisionstechnik UK’s impressive 8.000 m² manufacturing facility is equipped with a wide range of modern CNC machine tools and state-of-the-art automated production aids it is one of the most recent additions to the company’s advanced manufacturing plants, opening in 2013.

Owing to the demanding nature of Stoba Präzisionstechnik’s automotive customers and their precision requirements, Given the ability of the Coordinate Measuring Machine (CMM) to adapt to any future measuring plan, as well as handling inspection of existing manufactured components, it was decided at a very early stage in the planning of the company’s UK facility that several suitable CMMs would be purchased.

Mitutoyo CMMs

Having considered a number of alternatives, Lee Christian, Quality Manager at Stoba Präzisionstechnik UK Ltd, ordered three advanced CMMs from Mitutoyo UK. Lee explained. “As Mitutoyo CMMs are available in a wide range of sizes and accuracy classes, we were able to choose the best possible combination of machines to suit our precision and high-volume needs, a CrystaS 574 and two Strato Apex 776 CMMs.

“Even though I had used Mitutoyo CMMs earlier in my career, being mindful of two major factors, the challenging accuracy requirements of our parts and the large volume of components that we produce each day, we looked at several alternatives from other vendors. Although a couple of alternatives we looked at performed well in certain areas, we were satisfied that the Mitutoyo offerings ticked all of our boxes.

“In addition to the chosen Mitutoyo CMMs being capable of making very accurate measurements at high speed and satisfying our current accuracy and productive volume needs, we also considered them to be a future-proof investment. If our requirements change in times to come, and mindful of possible Mitutoyo developments, we will be able to retrofit new probe systems and software to our CMMs, or add to the systems in other ways.

“Our three Mitutoyo CMMs have proven to be an excellent investment. They are able to handle the large volumes of parts that pass through our Quality Department each day and to apply extremely accurate automated measuring routines to them.”

As an advanced moving-bridge type CNC machine, that provides high-accuracy measuring in the 1 μm class, the two Strato-Apex 776 CMMs purchased by Stoba proved ideal for the company’s high precision needs. The machines’ capacity – X 700mm, Y 700mm), Z 600mm – enables multiple parts to be loaded in a single set-up and fully-automatic inspection routines to be run.

To maximise the efficiency of the company’s three CMMs Stoba purchased Mitutoyo’s MeasurLink software. MeasurLink is designed for customers who need to acquire and analyse measurement data so that production processes can be effectively monitored and controlled in real time, with minimum load on production management resources.