TPT May 2020

AR T I C L E

FARO & Alltube Engineering

Case study: advanced FARO solution meets unique requirements of Alltube Engineering By FARO & Alltube Engineering

and speed and ease of use, it was able to link to the company’s CNC bending machines. “Alltube has a long established reputation as a major supplier of flexible and rigid pipeline products to many of the UK’s leading OEM’s, across a wide variety of markets.” explained Mr Fuller. “Between them, our directors have over 100 years of in-depth experience in engineering. This accumulated knowledge has resulted in our flexible approach and our ability to supply customers, ranging from SME’s, through to major international organisations, with the best possible solutions and to deliver a reliable, cost effective service. “A major problem we have is that the fitting of ridged pipework, such as hydraulic pipes, is rarely considered when customers undertake new projects, such as the design of commercial vehicles or buses. Therefore, we are often supplied with finished vehicle designs and then challenged to create relatively long, convoluted hydraulic pipe runs that will avoid obstructions and pass through the most limited of spaces. Also, they must not rub on areas such as vehicle chassis or interfere with any of the vehicles moving parts. “A vitally important aspect of our products is that many of our hydraulic pipes play a critical role in vehicles’ braking systems, so it is extremely important that, to prevent pipe abrasion and eventual failure, they are manufactured in such a way that no unintentional contact and chaffing occurs with vehicle parts.

The company serves a diverse UK customer base that operates across a range of industries, including the agriculture, construction, bus, trucks and rail sectors. Alltube Engineering’s in-house technical expertise means that it is able to work closely with customers in the areas of prototyping, product development and support through to full-scale production. To help ensure its products’ ease of installation and performance, the ISO9001:2015 approved company administers a rigorous quality management system. As many of the company’s rigid pipes are designed to be installed in confined areas and to pass through relatively small spaces, they feature extremely intricate, free-form 3D shapes and have demanding dimensional and geometrical tolerances. In addition to other quality control tools, Alltube Engineering use a fixed Coordinate Measuring Machine (CMM) to inspect its products and to generate customer quality reports. Although, the sheer size and complex shapes of many of the company’s larger tubes and pipes render fixed CMM, tactile probing measurement techniques impossible to use. In an effort to find a flexible means of accurately measuring the company’s entire product ranges, including its previously difficult to inspect large, complex pipes and tubes, Alltube technical director, Paul Fuller, recently searched for a suitable, large capacity, high-precision solution. Having considered other options, following an in-depth demonstration, he decided that the FARO QuantumE ScanArm was the ideal solution to the company’s inspection needs. Not only did the QuantumE have the required capacity, accuracy Established in 1986 as part of a small group, since becoming a privately-owned business in 2007, Alltube Engineering has significantly increased its output in the areas of tube and pipe manipulation and fabrication and also boosted its hydraulic and pneumatic hose assembly activities. Based in Daventry, Northamptonshire, Alltube Engineering manufactures a comprehensive range of flexible and rigid pipeline products.

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MAY 2020