The manufacture of rail components is a high-stakes field. Read on to find out how precision engineering companies like M-CNC play a crucial role in rail safety.
Why is precision engineering critical to rail safety?
As with all modes of transport, there is no room for error in rail manufacturing. Railway components must be created to tight tolerances, able to endure:
- Extremely heavy loads
- Continuous wear
- Long life cycles
- Environmental changes
There are several reasons why precision engineering is the manufacturing process of choice to ensure rail safety.
1. Meeting tight tolerances
Safety is key, and rail components need to be manufactured to meet incredibly tight tolerances. One of the ways this is achieved in CNC machining is through the unparalleled levels of precision enabled by CAD/CAM programming.
When producing components for the rail industry, we use CAD/CAM programming in both the design and manufacturing stages. Powerful CAD/CAM software can accurately simulate environments and the effects of things like air flow on a part. Designs can be thoroughly tested, even during the design stages, to ensure the finished component will behave as expected.
2. Complex, precise design
CNC machining also enables the manufacture of components with complex geometries and unusual shapes. Rail parts frequently have intricate designs that can only be achieved with a high level of precision.
CNC engineering enables these parts to be created to a high level of accuracy and quality. The repeatability of the process also ensures that safe, resilient parts can be made to high volumes.
3. Quality control
Airtight quality control and traceability of materials is essential to rail manufacture. At M-CNC, we provide complete material traceability on every component we produce. Our ISO 9001 accreditation guarantees the resilience of our QMS (Quality Management Systems).
As trusted manufacturers to the rail sector, we have also attained RISQS verification. This attests to the fact that we fully comply with all rail industry regulations and risk assessments, and deliver reliably with full supply chain resilience.
4. CMM measuring
We house industry-leading CMMs (Coordinate Measuring Machines). CMM measuring is used to test the parts we manufacture to ensure they meet the original intent of the design.
CMMs are one part of our stringent quality control process. These machines measure the physical geometry of components to an incredibly high degree of accuracy, checking for any quality issues or unexpected deviations.
