This technical information has been contributed by
Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence

Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence Earns Prestigious Design Award

WLS qFLASH White Light Scanner Recognized in Industrial Category at GOOD DESIGN™ Awards 2015

NORTH KINGSTOWN, R.I.—Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence (formerly Hexagon Metrology) announced recently that its WLS qFLASH vision measurement system has won a distinguished GOOD DESIGN® Award from the Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design. Founded in 1950, Good Design is a prestigious international awards program that annually highlights innovative industrial, product, and graphic designs created around the world. The WLS qFLASH earned top honors in the industrial design category.

All entries for the awards program must be designed for a mass market and in production or manufactured for at least two years before the title year. Submissions are judged by a jury of design professionals, leading industry specialists, and design press, based on criteria including the highest aesthetics in terms of innovative design, new technologies, form, materials, and function.

The award-winning WLS qFLASH is a non-contact, optical shop-floor system that uses advanced blue LED high-power illumination for portable 3D measurement. Wrapped in a robust, carbon fiber housing, the vision system’s optical head design is small, light, and easy to handle in confined industrial spaces. With low sensitivity to machinery vibration, industrial light, or temperature changes, WLS qFLASH enables manufacturers of small to medium size parts to measure surfaces and features in formidable production environments, such as stamping facilities. The WLS qFLASH stereo-vision technology enables fast image acquisition, reportedly in less than 10 milliseconds on average, enabling constant measurement workflow. Shiny objects and surfaces can be measured without treatment, adding another level of inspection efficiency.

“Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence is honored to receive a GOOD DESIGN 2015 award for the groundbreaking WLS qFLASH product and its state-of-the-art blue light technology,” said Angus Taylor, president and CEO of Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence, North America, in a release announcing the award. “There is stiff competition for these awards, with Fortune 500 companies and other prominent global manufacturers, so it is quite challenging to rank in a design category. The award acknowledges WLS qFLASH as a whole package—small footprint, lightweight design, affordable price point—which makes it a very dynamic solution for today's industrial metrology marketplace.”

Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence (HexagonMI.com) offers expertise in the collection, analysis and active use of measurement data. The company has a network of local service centers, production facilities, and commercial operations across five continents.