McWane Ductile Ohio (MDO) reached out to Advanced Gauging Technologies (AGT) in 2016 to inquire about profiling the iron thickness of our ductile cast iron utility poles. MDO manufactures 18 foot tapered pole segments and then, through an assembly process, presses the segments together, yielding the requested full length utility pole. MDO purchased two AGT 800 gauges to measure the thickness throughout the entire length of any given pole segment. Our previous measuring process consisted of using a manual, operator run, ultrasound method, which was much more time consuming and turned out to be much less reliable. The inconsistent data did not give us the ability to fully understand our manufacturing process and conduct meaningful experiments to improve our iron consistency. With AGT’s perseverance we are now able to do just that. We now have the ability to obtain a meaningful thickness profile, and are using the data to conduct experiments to improve our manufacturing process. We are a unique customer. AGT had never measured a tapered cylindrical shape in one of its gauges. AGT was determined to seek a solution for MDO’s unique application; its flexible and customer service was and continues to be excellent.
