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Leading the world construction machinery market with a thorough commitment to quality
Mr. Takahiro Douke, Center Director
Parts Inspection Section, Quality Assurance Division
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| Address |
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3-1-1 Ueno, Hirakata City, Osaka Prefecture |
| Foundation of Osaka Plant |
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1952 |
| Medium to large hydraulic shovels, medium to large bulldozers, computerized construction machinery, resource recycling machinery |
| URL |
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https://home.komatsu/en/ |
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Komatsu is a global enterprise and a leader in the construction machinery industry with the very best and peerless commodities, services and solutions. We visited the Komatsu Osaka Plant located in Hirakata City, Osaka Prefecture for this Mitutoyo Report. Mitutoyo's 3D measuring machines are used for quality control of construction machinery exported to many countries around the world. We asked about the strategy for improving quality and the utilization of our 3D measuring machines in the Parts Inspection Section of the Quality Assurance Division.
Important base for global production work
Komatsu Osaka Plant plays an important role in the production work of Komatsu globalization and is a core plant. Osaka Technical Center is a plant producing construction machinery and addressing product development. The Production Technology Development Center is the center of research on production technology at the site where they are working on manufacturing by paying special attention to quality and reliability with the integration of the three divisions of development, production and production technology.
The products manufactured in the Osaka Plant mainly consist of medium to large hydraulic shovels, medium to large bulldozers and resource recycling machinery.
The Osaka Plant functions as a factory in charge of developing and improving medium-size shovels for the world.
Mr. Takahiro Douke, Director of the Parts Inspection Section Center of the Quality Assurance Division explains at the Osaka Plant as follows:
"The Osaka Plant leads the production systems in 17 countries including China, Indonesia, Russia and India. We may go to the dependent factories in each country from our site to support distribution and production."
The Osaka Plant also produces large quantities of ICT construction machinery for operation assistance with ICT utilization and the world's first hybrid hydraulic shovel.
We focused our attention on the inspection work that is shouldered by the Parts Inspection Section Center of the Quality Assurance Division where Mr. Douke works.
The main work of the parts inspection center is all kinds of inspections of trial parts and the first parts as well as inspections of mass-produced parts. If a defect is found on the assembly line or a quality problem appears on the market, finding out the cause and taking preventive measures is important work for them.
The parts inspection center consists of four teams that have different inspection objects. Team 1 is in charge of inspecting medium to large shovels and medium to large bulldozers, using Mitutoyo's CARB, the horizontal CNC CMM, for the inspection work.
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CARB, Mitutoyo's horizontal CNC CMM
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Precision measurement of construction machinery frame parts
Measurement with CARB,
Mitutoyo's horizontal CNC CMM
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CARB has been installed on a large surface plate 10 meters long by 8 meters wide located in a corner of the welding shop and is used to inspect the machining quality of construction machine parts.
Mr. Shoji Oda in the Parts Inspection Section of the Quality Assurance Division tells us about using CARB as follows:
"Precise machining is applied to various portions of the parts to be inspected. We use CARB to inspect machining accuracy, evaluating and confirming. We determine if the parts are assembled as instructed and can move correctly."
Especially for measuring geometrical tolerances, CARB serves as an important part.
"With a large-sized bulldozer, for example, a geometrical tolerance is instructed for multiple portions such as the squareness of the mainframe, the flatness of the portion that the cabin is put on and the parallelism of the portion where the engine is installed. When a hole is made after flattening, a part may not be mounted in the hole because of the hole displacement or its flatness; in such cases, we use CARB to conduct measurement properly," said Mr. Oda.
The measurement accuracy depends on parts. Some parts require high accuracy to the order of 0.01 mm. For sheet metal parts to which geometrical tolerance is not applied and welded parts, required accuracy is not high and a layout machine installed on the surface plate where CARB is installed is used for measurement.
Young employees who support quality as leading employees
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Mr. Satoshi Hanashima,
head of the Public Relations Group
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In 2006 CARB was introduced in the parts inspection center. Mr. Oda explains the background of introducing CARB as follows:
"The mainframe of a large construction machine with 10 meters in total length is 3 to 4 meters in the longest part. Our team has often inspected such large parts, and we introduced CARB as a large-sized 3D measuring machine that can measure large parts from long before starting construction."
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With Mr. Shoji Oda (left),
team leader of Parts Inspection Section,
Quality Assurance Division
Mr. Kazuho Hamamoto (right)
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The parts inspection center had used Mitutoyo's 3D measuring machines before. Therefore, they said that no problems occurred after introducing the machine and a new inspection system smoothly started. "We paid attention to every detail like the attachment of very fine iron powder generated by metal machining to the magnet portion used at the connection part between a probe and a main unit to prevent the accumulation of small items from building up into problems," because the installation site is very close to the machining site, said Mr. Douke.
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Mr. Atsushi Saito,
section manager of
Parts Inspection Section,
Quality Assurance Division
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When a large part was measured before introducing CARB, we repeatedly moved the layout machine. However, after introducing CARB, we eliminated such problems and significantly improved operating efficiency.
"Measurement was manually conducted when the layout machine was used, but CARB eliminated such problems and now we can use our time more efficiently," Mr. Douke said.
Today, the number of employees at the inspection center is 29. Mr. Kazuho Hamamoto, who conducts inspection work at the parts inspection center, led by Mr. Oda, says that he joined the company six years ago and is still learning precise measurement through his work every day.
"We inspect a wide variety of parts. I am sometimes entrusted with inspecting a workpiece that I do not know the measurement method for . Then, I conduct inspection work while Mr. Oda, the team leader, teaches me the correct measurement method. I would like to learn more and be capable of inspecting any and all types of parts."
In the parts inspection center, every employee works on quality improvement with a serious look and supports the technological innovation of a global company. The dedicated approach to technology and quality enables Komatsu to achieve a further huge leap into the future.
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