When you work with mission-critical parts that could be used in surgeries or in jet engines, quality and accuracy are extremely important. Every part that we manufacture requires specific grades of materials to make sure it works precisely how it’s supposed to. Which is why Swiss-Tech uses a handheld spectrometer to verify exact grades of materials they’re using to manufacture their client’s parts.
“We want to make sure that everything we produce at Swiss-Tech is made with the right grade of materials,” said Jason Price, director of Engineering and Support Technology at Swiss-Tech. “If something is made with the wrong grade of material it could corrode in someone’s body during surgery, we do not want that to be part of our legacy.”
XRF Material Spectrometer
We started using the S1 Titan XRF quality spectrometer more than two years ago as a corrective active that was internally driven to give our clients additional reassurance that we will produce what they need to their exact specifications.
The XRF quality scanner can be calibrated for alloy, gold, precious metals, bulk material like E-scrap and catalytic converters, soil, mining, restricted materials and materials specific to our clients.
Scanning material quality for each job
Every individual operator and inspection employee at Swiss-Tech is trained on the XRF spectrometer. We use it during the set-up of every job to make sure the right materials have been issued.
“Employees like the reassurance that the correct material has been issued to their job,” Price said. The minimal amount of time using the spectrometer has added to Swiss-Tech’s setup time is a “no brainer” from a risk mitigation perspective.
Over the course of the last two years, there have been several times that the XRF spectrometer has alerted us to supplier material that was questionable.
“Engineering had to get involved to determine what was going on with the questionable product, but we didn’t make the part,” Price said. “There’s additional reassurance our client’s get from working with a company like Swiss-Tech – we go the extra step to maintain the quality of their parts.”
We have several quality certifications and using the XRF spectrometer lends more credence to our compliance to those certifications. If you’re looking for a high-quality, precision manufactured component that requires exact specifications and material grades, contact us today.