Located on the Rassau Industrial Estate at Ebbw Vale, Gwent, ZF Steering Systems Nacam Ltd (Nacam) manufactures steering columns for most European passenger car companies, which means that QA is of critical importance. The thrust of the QA regime has always been to use the best technology to minimize the possibility of human error compromising product quality. Naturally, with safety critical components, the primary objective is to ensure that a component does not fail in service but there is the secondary consideration of protecting the company’s well-established reputation for quality and reliability. For a number of years, Nacam has used Kistler sensors and industrial monitoring systems in QA applications and the latest is a test rig to ensure that the screw threads in the universal joints for the new Jaguar XF are within specification.

The test rig, designed by Nacam with technical assistance from Kistler, uses two Kistler Type 4502 miniature torque sensors suppliers to check that both threads have been formed correctly and are neither too loose or to tight. This latter parameter is important as during installation on the car, the clamping screws are inserted after the steering column is in situ and space is tight. If the threads are not within spec, the whole column has to be removed: an expensive operation for which Nacam has to pay. More importantly, if only one U/J fails customer inspection, the whole batch will be rejected.

Read more at www.kistler.com