Inspection Planning: A Critical but Often Underestimated Step
In modern manufacturing, the quality of inspection results depends heavily on the quality of the inspection plan. However, inspection planning is often still done manually using drawings, CAD screenshots, or informal annotations.
This approach introduces several technical limitations. For example, inspection features are often extracted manually from CAD models, which can lead to inconsistent interpretations of geometric requirements and tolerances. The lack of standardization in inspection views, alignments, and reporting structures increases variability between operators and inspection cycles. Consequently, data continuity between CAD, inspection planning, and execution systems remains weak, which limits automation and traceability.
As inspection strategies become more complex and PMI adoption increases, these manual preparation methods will no longer be scalable.
Planner: Structuring Inspection Preparation Upstream
Planner, developed by Metrologic DCS, is offline software dedicated to preparing and structuring 3D inspection plans directly from CAD data. It allows quality and metrology engineers to define all inspection-related information before any measurement takes place.
Working directly from CAD models ensures that inspection preparation is based on accurate, up-to-date geometry rather than secondary documentation. The software supports all major CAD formats, including CATIA, SOLIDWORKS, NX, Creo, STEP, and IGES. This allows organizations to maintain open and flexible workflows, regardless of their design environment.
From CAD and PMI to a Structured Inspection Feature Plan
Depending on the available data and the maturity of the organization’s PMI strategy, Planner offers multiple technical approaches to building an inspection feature plan.
Inspection characteristics can be defined directly from the CAD geometry to ensure clear geometric intent and a robust feature definition. When PMI is available, Planner uses annotation and ballooning data to speed up the creation of inspection plans. Existing PMI can be explored, edited, and enriched to ensure that inspection requirements align with quality standards and measurement strategies.
This combination of geometry- and PMI-based preparation enables a smooth transition toward model-based definition without disrupting existing processes.
If users do not include PMIs with their CAD models, they can easily create their own characteristics, add GDT evaluations, and create balloons.
Ensuring Consistency and Repeatability in Inspection Execution
One of the major challenges in industrial inspection is achieving consistency and repeatability across different machines, operators, and production batches. Planner addresses this challenge by enabling users to prepare and validate inspection alignments in advance, ensuring consistent part positioning during execution.
Inspection views can also be prepared with stickers that clearly communicate measurement intent, reducing ambiguity for shop floor operators. In parallel, inspection reports are defined and customized upstream, ensuring that inspection results are delivered in a format that meets internal and customer requirements.
By consolidating these elements during the preparation phase, Planner significantly reduces variability during inspection execution.
Enabling Digital Continuity Across the Inspection Workflow
Planner plays a key technical role in enabling digital continuity within the inspection process. Inspection plans and associated data are prepared in a structured format, ready to be exported and reused in downstream applications.
By fusing CAD data and inspection plans into formats such as QIF, Planner supports interoperability across the digital quality ecosystem. This structured data exchange improves traceability, supports automation, and enables more efficient collaboration between engineering, quality, and production teams.
A Reliable Inspection Plan, Ready Before Measurement Begins
Planner turns the process of preparing for an inspection into a controlled, engineering-driven activity. The result is a reliable digital inspection plan that clearly defines the dimensions to be measured, the associated inspection views and alignments, and the predefined reporting structure.
Preparing inspection plans offline and directly from CAD data ensures faster, more consistent inspection execution that is fully aligned with modern digital quality strategies.