Application Success Story

When Mark Towers joined Tessy Plastics in 2005, his mission as Director of Quality was to upgrade the company’s quality capabilities. Today, the Quality department is comprised of 77 employees who support quality interests on seven production shifts, nearly 365 days a year. The quality program is a major diff erentiator when prospecting for new customers, allowing the company to aggressively and confi dently move into new vertical markets that require high precision capability.

Quality systems at Tessy have a high degree of automation and the company uses SPC (Statistical Process Control) to qualify the molding process using dimensional data collected by their nu-merous QVI® measurement systems.

Currently, Tessy Plastics has 20 OGP® SmartScope® video measurement machines deployed at multiple molding locations, including inside their ISO (14644-1) Class 8 production cleanrooms. Once the mold tooling has been dimensionally quali-fi ed, measurement data is collected from production samples and automat-ically entered into the company’s SPC program, which monitors process consistency. “Our custom-ers have realized higher productivity in their own plants because they know they can rely on com-pliant product from Tessy. Their assembly processes run better because our products are so consistent. We do that through accuracy and process control that the OGP machines help us maintain,” according to Towers.

To further the company’s engineering capability, Tessy recently purchased an OGP SmartScope Quest™ 450, running ZONE3®, OGP’s fl agship 3D measurement software. This powerful measurement system is used by the Engineering Development Group within the Quality Department to qualify new molds and tooling prior to production. Using 3D CAD models supplied

How Tessy Plastics Uses Precision Measurement to

Gain Market ShareELBRIDGE, NY - A thriving injec-tion molding plastics company, Tessy Plastics currently operates over 270 molding machines, spe-cializing in manufacturing process-es that include product engineer-ing, automated micro - assembly and robotic packaging.

Since its founding in 1973 by Henry Beck, Tessy has grown to become one of the largest em-ployers in the central New York region with over 1000 employees.

Tessy has over one million square feet of manufacturing and ware-housing space and is looking for more. The company has major facilities in multiple central New York locations and several smaller operations overseas.

To this day, the business operates and prospers as a private com-pany under the leadership of the Beck family.

Quality Vision International, Inc.

Mark Towers

fi ed, measurement data is

consistency. “Our custom-

“ We are gaining ground in niche markets... and OGP measurement systems have helped give us the precision capability to compete in those markets.

Precision for People®

by their customer, Tessy is able to com-pare mold tooling features directly to features on the customer engineering drawing, all without having to produce a single part. This minimizes set-up and molding machine time spent on proto-types, only to fi nd out that tooling must be pulled off the machine and reworked in order to produce conforming parts. According to Towers, “the SmartScope Quest will be utilized primarily by our tooling quality engineers for develop-ment because of its high accuracy, but it also has the versatility to be used by our production quality technicians when necessary.” The SmartScope Quest has a QVI TeleStar® Plus Laser. A TTL (through-the-lens) laser enables scanning a laser spot over a surface, providing contour details as part of a measurement routine, and the system also has a QVI Feather Probe™- a sensitive reso-nance probe measuring very small features that may be inaccessible to other measurement sensors.

One business segment that the company has fo-cused on is micro-molding and micro-assembly for the medical equipment market. Holding the tight tolerances required by a highly regulated industry

is the goal throughout the manufacturing process: injection molding, measurement, and micro-assem-bly which includes robotic pick-and-place machines located in a cleanroom production environment. Tessy’s ability to manufacture and measure highly

sophisticated and accurate micro parts has allowed the company to fi nd success in new markets un-reachable by traditional injection molders. “We are gaining ground in niche markets both domestically and in Europe, and OGP brand measurement sys-tems have helped give us the precision capability to compete in those markets. The new micro-assembly orders that we win indicate we’re gaining market share, usually at the expense of one of our competi-

tors,” commented Towers.

Mark Towers has been a long-time champion for the OGP brand at Tessy, and for good rea-son, “OGP machines are very reliable. Software is rock solid. Super easy to program. Over the years, I’ve bought nearly 30 OGP machines –

I’m addicted.”

Learn more about OGP brand measurement systems:www.qvii.com/ogp

About QVI (Quality Vision International, Inc., www.qvii.com). QVI is a company dedicated to the design and manufacture of precision dimensional measurement systems. QVI technologies include the integration of optical, laser and contact sensors into powerful, yet easy to use systems with innovative software that focuses on the user experience. More than 50,000 QVI systems are used by manufacturers in over 75 countries, enabling the capability to verify compliance to design intent and validate statis-tical process control.Founded in 1945, QVI has grown to become the world’s largest vision metrology company. Being experts in dimensional me-trology for precision manufacturing, the company has developed specialized software, hardware, and multisensor technology for their measurement systems. QVI brands include OGP® (Optical Gaging Products), VIEW (VIEW Micro-Metrology), RAM (RAM Optical Instrumentation), CCP (Certifi ed Comparator Products), KOTEM, ShapeGrabber, and Itaca. Headquartered in Rochester, New York, USA, the company maintains corporate facilities in Dayton, Phoenix, Ottawa, Frankfurt, Turin, Budapest, Singapore, Beijing, Xi’an, Suzhou, Shenzhen, Bangalore, and Tokyo.

OGP RAM VIEW CCP KOTEM ShapeGrabber Itaca

The new micro-assembly orders that we win indicate we’re gaining market share, usually at the expense of one of our competitors.”

Easy-to-use OGP measurement software allows quality technicians to collect and analyze measurement data for precision production parts.