An Olympus application note demonstrates how the efficiency of opto-digital microscopy has profited quality assurance projects of the SGS group.
The company’s DSX500 opto-digital light microscope has been used by the Dortmund-based SGS Institut Fresenius GmbH (a subsidiary of the SGS Group) to undertake a diverse range of quality assurance tasks in the automotive, aerospace and medical technology sectors.
“Time is key to our work,” explains SGS analyst Markus Ridder.
One of the company’s projects, the quality control of carbon-fibre reinforced polymer parts for the new BMW i3 electric car, involved the preparation and examination of 300 micrographs.
Ridder said: “The previous manual process of composing the image was very time-consuming - the DSX has reduced that time greatly.”
Time-saving efficiency is achieved through various features including an automatic image stitching function which effortlessly generates images of large samples at magnifications of up to 4,000x.
This has reduced the time of large-scale micrograph acquisition from 20 minutes to five minutes and is ideal for the detailed inspection of a large range of sample types, even those with regular features.
Thanks to the informative images produced by the DSX500, SGS are receiving positive customer feedback and generating repeat business.
SGS Institut Fresenius laboratory manager Olaf Günnewig said: “Our customers greatly appreciate the possibilities offered by (opto) digital microscopy. Thanks to the equipment and its imaging capabilities, we are more and more often seeing repeat business which we would otherwise likely not have obtained.”
