Currently digital transformation has a huge impact on human lives. Digital transformation does not just mean a transformation of a (non-) physical element to a digitally identifiable element. It focuses on the utilization of digital technology for transforming (improving) procedures or routines of business and operation. The manufacturing industry has been adopting the most recent digital technology, and lots of digital data are being created. To utilize the stored data, data analysis is essential. Because the manufacturing data is created in a different format at every manufacturing step, the integration of the data is always the bottleneck of the data analysis. Querying of the right data at the proper time is fundamental for high-level data analysis. The digital thread is introduced to provide the inter-reference of digital data based on a context. This paper proposes a digital thread framework for the machining process. The context of the proposed framework consists of the questions of how the product will be machined, how it is (was) being produced, and how it was made. A prototype software was developed to verify the proposed framework by implementing the creating, storing, and querying modules for simulation, monitoring, and inspection data.

The parallel kinematic machine (PKM), which is applied Exechon mechanism, is efficiently used for manufacturing industry due to its agile movement, flexibility and high rigidity. On-Machine measurement (OMM) in high-dof manufacturing machines such as the PKM and five-axis machine tools has importantly used for processed part measurement, coordinate system set and machine performance evaluation. In this study, measurement and compensation of touch probe offset, which occurs measurement error of the OMM, are carried out for the PKM. A dependent rotational motion is occurred due to kinematic constraint, and causes non-constant offset of a touch probe. The dependent rotational motion is calculated via inverse kinematics analysis. The probe offset is accurately measured using a master ring with considering the analyzed dependent rotational motion angle. In addition, measurement procedure to eliminate the offset induced measurement error is presented. To verify the proposed technique, circular tests using a master ring and commercial touch probe on the PKM were performed. Circularity measurement deviation of a master was reduced 65% without the PKM’s kinematic error calibration.

Servo mismatch, which affects positioning accuracy of multi-axis machine tools, is usually estimated via the circular test. However, due to mechanical restrictions in measuring instruments, the circular test using a double ball-bar is difficult to apply in miniaturized or super-large sized machine tools. Laser trackers are widely used to measure the form accuracy of parts and the positioning accuracy of driving systems. In this paper, a technique for the servo mismatch estimation of multi-axis machine tools is proposed via the circular test using a laser tracker. To verify the proposed technique, experiments using a double ball-bar and laser tracker are conducted in a 3-axis machine tool. The difference in the evaluation results is 0.05 msec. The servo mismatch for the miniaturized machine tool is also evaluated using the proposed technique.

The out-of-squareness is one of the error sources that affect the positioning accuracy of machine tools and coordinate measuring machines. Laser interferometer is widely used to measure the position and angular errors, and can measure the squareness using an optical square. However, the squareness measurement using the laser interferometer is difficult, as compared to other errors due to complicated optics setup and Abbe’s error occurrence. The effect of out-of squareness mainly appears at the face-diagonal of the movable plane. The diagonal displacements are also affected by the position dependent geometric errors. In this study, the squareness estimation techniques via diagonal displacement measurement using the laser interferometer without an optical square were proposed. For accurate estimation and measurement time reduction, the errors selected from proposed discriminant were measured. Discrepancy between the proposed technique with the laser interferometer (with an optical square) result was 0.6 μrad.