At GM’s Defiance, Ohio plant, a high-tech tool helps ensure engine components meet high standards for quality and precision. The 3D Metra Scan doesn't just measure parts faster; it sees them differently. As manufacturing grows more complex, teams are finding new ways to boost efficiency, precision, and product quality with tools like 3D Metra Scan.

A few years ago, GM’s Defiance plant – one of its key metal foundries, where engine blocks and cylinder head castings are produced – started using the 3D Metra Scan tool. It allowed workers to quickly pinpoint manufacturing conditions that fall outside required specifications.

Previously, touchpoint coordinate measuring machines (CMMs) captured parts data only at specific points. But the Metra scanner captures the entire part surface at 1.8 million data points per second, revealing fine grooves, internal channels, and surface conditions that legacy methods simply couldn't see.

The 3D Metra Scan offers a window into how GM’s manufacturing teams are evolving, embracing advanced technology not just to work faster, but to work smarter, and to strengthen quality processes. This scanning technology helps teams identify issues faster, fixing potential problems before parts leave the shop.

But GM’s commitment to improving its products extends beyond engines. It aims to launch every product without defects, meeting rigorous quality standards.

The 3D Metra Scan captures part dimensions in seconds and generates a digital image on screen that is used to validate part for quality.

Collaborative precision, with speed: Across the industry, precision measurement has historically meant slow, point-by-point analysis. GM Defiance proves there's a better way, with the results rippling across the enterprise.

• Metra Scan’s mobility makes it a shared resource, with the ability to be set up in five minutes.
• The mobile scanner has also been deployed at GM’s Saginaw, Brownstown Battery, and Factory Zero locations, with parts from facilities like the Romulus Engine plant being regularly sent to Defiance for scanning, and precise data shared back to those teams for troubleshooting.
• Teams no longer work in isolation – they scan, share, and solve together. That kind of connected, technology-enabled problem solving is exactly what modern manufacturing looks like.

For castings, Metra Scan has helped drop scan times from 60 minutes per part to just ten. Setup and programming, which once took up to four hours, now takes five minutes. Tooling scans that previously required several hours are now completed in 15 minutes.

"Using the 3D Metra Scan has been a game changer," said Tim Scherer, pattern maker at GM Defiance Operations, who has helped lead the way. "This process obtains full-surface, high-precision analysis and insight quickly – so you pinpoint issues sooner, cut rework, and provide real-time feedback to plant teams or customer plants, minimizing impact to production."

The 3D Metra Scan is yet another way GM innovates, using technology to identify and fix issues early, elevating overall quality and building winning vehicles.