How CMM Inspection Services Accelerate Time to Market

Speed counts when you’re racing to bring new products to market or striving to keep quality on track in complex manufacturing. But delays from in-house inspection can grind progress to a halt.

In fact, a recent survey reported that 27% of UK manufacturing professionals ranked reducing inspection time as their top priority. A clear sign that internal capacity is struggling to keep pace with production demands. For quality control teams feeling the pressure, outsourcing CMM inspection is fast becoming a strategic move to accelerate delivery without compromising precision.

Owning a Coordinate Measuring Machine gives you control, but it also comes with delays. From limited operator availability to bottlenecks in programming and post-processing, in-house inspection can become a production choke point.

For many manufacturers, especially those handling short production runs or prototyping, the volume of parts waiting for inspection often exceeds capacity. And when your in-house team is under pressure, mistakes happen, leading to rework, waste, or worse, product recalls.

CMM downtime, staffing constraints, and the challenge of keeping up with calibration and software updates can create more drag than lift. That’s where outsourced CMM inspection services make strategic sense.

Contract metrology service providers like MSL offer immediate access to high-precision CMMs, operated by skilled engineers with a deep understanding of dimensional inspection. Instead of waiting for your machine to become available, or your team to find the time, you get:

• Fast turnaround for prototypes, batch inspections, or critical QA checks
• Certified traceability and comprehensive inspection reports
• Expertise on demand, especially for complex parts or tight tolerances

At MSL, we provide CMM inspection services and 3D measurement services from our Derby-based metrology laboratory. Using leading-edge technologies, including tactile CMMs and portable scanning systems, we deliver accurate, repeatable, and production-ready results. But our role doesn’t stop at providing services; we work as true partners, helping customers resolve their metrology challenges with solutions tailored to their production needs.

A good example of this partnership in action is our work with Unipart Powertrain Applications, a Tier 1 automotive supplier. Their inspection processes were heavily manual, resulting in bottlenecks and slow feedback to production teams. By collaborating with Unipart, we introduced an automated strategy that combined Creaform HandySCAN 3D scanners with collaborative robot arms, enabling unattended scanning and rapid inspection feedback.

The impact was significant: inspection time was cut dramatically, throughput improved, and measurement consistency increased, all without compromising quality or compliance. This kind of outcome reflects how MSL works alongside customers, not only supplying measurement services but tailoring solutions that accelerate time to market.

Every manufacturing environment is different. Every product needed for inspection is different. It’s why our inspection services are designed to flex around your needs. Whether you’re dealing with tight production schedules, limited floor space, or oversized components, MSL deliver precision inspection wherever you need it.

Off-site inspections are carried out in our fully equipped metrology lab, ideal for parts that can be shipped securely and where quick turnaround is essential. Here, you get access to calibrated equipment, experienced engineers, and full reporting without tying up your resources.

When it’s not practical to move the part, our team comes to you. We offer fully mobile inspection using portable CMM arms, 3D scanners, and touch probe technology, enabling us to work directly on your shop floor or at your site. From first-article inspection to on-the-spot troubleshooting, we bring the lab to your line.

Rest assured, whether you choose off-site convenience or on-site immediacy, you’ll get the same high standards of accuracy, traceability, and speed that define every MSL inspection.

For customers with in-house CMMs but limited programming capacity, MSL also offers remote CMM programme creation. This service allows our experts to write or adapt inspection routines off-site, helping you reduce bottlenecks and keep your machines productive, without needing an on-site visit.

Please note: To use this service, the end user must hold a valid software licence with the ability to import DMIS (Dimensional Measuring Interface Standard) code, commonly used across the metrology industry.

Whether you need help launching a new part or optimising an existing routine, remote programming gives you fast access to MSL’s expertise without interrupting your workflow.

You need CMM inspection and 3D scanning to work fast, flexibly, and fail-safe. It’s why more quality control engineers are turning to us for trusted CMM inspection services. With the challenges around staffing constraints and high production demands, we’re not just offering a service; we’re solving a production problem.

Whether you’re launching new products, scaling production, or troubleshooting critical issues, MSL’s inspection team is ready to help you stay ahead of the queue.

Explore our CMM inspection services or contact the team to talk through your project.