Manufacturers of medical components must be able to provide the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) with information on what product was inspected with which measuring machine and program for up to 30 years. CeramTec AG in Plochingen, Germany, can deliver this data at any time for its products e.g., for the ball heads and cup inserts of artificial hips.

With the server-based Software Master Control Center (MCC) from Carl Zeiss for company intranets, CeramTec utilizes a multifunctional product: it is a type of control center that offers system management for coordinate measuring machines, measuring program management, monitoring and diagnostic functions, and document management and archiving. All measured values from production control and the subsequent quality assurance checks are sent to the MCC by the PRISMO® navigator coordinate measuring machines and CALYPSO® measuring software and are then seamlessly captured, documented and archived.

The MCC is ideal when production takes places at several locations. Via a dedicated connection, measuring technicians can access programs and load them to their measuring machines. The MCC ensures that identical measuring programs are used. This makes the manufacturing process reliable, flexible and efficient. With the data acquisition and onboard diagnostics modules, troubleshooting is a breeze and errors can be easily identified. Following failure of a measuring machine, the time, speed and deflection of the probe during a collision can be determined. Users can inform the service technician what happened before a field call takes place. They then know what needs to be done and do not have to start their diagnosis from scratch.