Last week, as I was delivering a set of checking fixtures to a customer, he told me that it was the first time that he received the checking fixture before the injection mould. Although this is how things should be, since it is a basic and essential point, this is scarcely the case, which is a big mistake. One of the main advantages of checking fixtures, as we explained in former articles is to enable the checking of the first parts manufactured with the definitive production means; this enables to take the relevant measures as for the adjusting of these means, and even more so in the case of parts forming an assembled part or mechanism, for which adjustment is crucial.

Through our experience, we have seen that in nearly 30% of the cases, checking fixtures get delivered when the production process has already been started, and there are fewer possibilities to pay off the checking fixture. Another customer justified this fact by saying that they would rather launch the manufacturing of a checking fixture once they are sure that parts can be correctly manufactured and will not have any design modifications. In that case, what is the point in having a checking fixture manufactured? The cost of possible modifications on a checking fixture is minimal compared to the utility it will have in the production process. Let us learn from our mistakes.