Installing great software can be exciting because there’s always the promise of making your job easier. But, until you know how to use it, you can’t get there.

Portable metrology software SpatialAnalyzer, also known as SA, comes with extensive training. But you don’t have to read a heavy manual, load a disk or download a tutorial. You get a real person. Gary Garrison is the director of training at New River Kinematics, the manufacturer of SA. He’ll tell you that SpatialAnalyzer is different from old measurement technology.

Gary says “math is a universal language,” which is helpful because NRK has clients all over the world.

One of the key concepts that Garrison believes is that portable metrology offers certain advantages, such as the ability to know if you have the right part before it’s removed from the production process. The old way of taking a part sample to linger in the coordinate metrology machine (CMM) queue is not the most efficient way to know if you can get the green light. It’s also hard to determine where the problem occurred down the line. Time is money and taking a long time to know that a piece trending out of tolerance with the spec can be costly. “Go to the source and investigate,” Garrison said.

When training people on portable metrology software, Garrison says the challenge is that there is so much that can be done. “It’s a comprehensive package, with lots of tools for specific tasks. It can be overwhelming ... but once you master a few fundamental concepts it’s easy to use.” Garrison starts training with questions, to find out what each person does in a day’s work. It’s important to know what their daily work schedule is like to find out the best way to help them maximize their time and complete their tasks. NRK’s training is adapted to each customer’s needs instead of assuming each customer wants to walk through a rote syllabus.

By training people on standard software,there’s educational leverage. Rather than the old method of one person per piece, like “Kevin the tracker master” and “Phil the arm guru,” they can each work any measurement device that is running SA, which is universally understood once you know the concepts.

One of the major differences about SA is the traceability factor. “A lot of people make assumptions with their data, and that can lead to trouble. SA records the root measurement data from the instrument. Analysis can be changed or modified without re-measurement,” Garrison said.

Engineers know the variety of issues that can come with recollecting data, from the wasted time and energy, to the delays on the production floor, but SpatialAnalyzer makes it easier to avoid those pitfalls.

“SA stores the data that the instrument reports separately from the assumptions that are made during measurement. That way, if the assumptions are subsequently changed, the expense of re-collecting measurements can be avoided,” Garrison said.

In the end, it’s better to have a real person to talk to about whatever issue you are having with your software. And the best situation is to talk to one of the people who helped develop it, someone who understands what you do every day. So, make a new friend, call the NRK engineers, and get started making your job easier.