Built for places where a measurement mistake is expensive.
Our background is in large, complex, high-stakes manufacturing, where parts are big, tolerances are tight, and getting measurement wrong costs real money. These are the industries we know from the inside.
The same problem shows up across heavy industry.
Different products, same core challenge: measuring large or complex parts accurately, in a real production environment, with people and processes that hold up over time.
Shipbuilding
Decades of our work comes straight from the shipyard: hull alignment, large-structure measurement, and dimensional control on parts that don’t fit on any inspection table. We know what portable metrology has to survive there, and what it takes to get trustworthy numbers.
Aerospace
Tight tolerances, demanding documentation, and parts where a measurement error doesn’t stay cheap for long. We help teams pick the right portable systems and build measurement processes that stand up to the scrutiny this industry expects.
Automotive
High volume, hard cost pressure, and no room for measurement that slows the line. We help match the tool and the method to the throughput, so quality and speed aren’t fighting each other.
Heavy Manufacturing
Big machined parts, weldments, and assemblies that are awkward to measure and costly to scrap. This is home turf for portable 3D metrology, and the place where the wrong call on equipment or method shows up fastest.
Nuclear & Energy
High-consequence work with documentation and traceability demands to match. We help build measurement processes that are accurate, repeatable, and defensible, the kind that hold up to an audit as well as an inspection.
Tier 1 & Tier 2 Suppliers
Suppliers carry the tolerance and reporting demands of their customers without the metrology budget of a prime. We help right-size the investment, get the most out of the equipment you have, and meet customer requirements without overbuying.
Robotics & Automation
Laser trackers are the ideal way to measure a robot as it moves through 3D space: statically at specific poses, or dynamically with specialized 6DoF targets tracking continuous position and orientation. From robot verification to measurement plans for automated inspection, this is where metrology and automation meet.
Different products, the same physics.
A hull block, a wing section, a turbine casing, and a machine bed have more in common than their industries admit. The parts are large, the tolerances are tight, and the measurement has to happen on a working floor. That shared problem is what our experience is built around.
The part won’t come to the lab
When the part is measured where it is built, the measurement system travels: trackers, arms, photogrammetry, and total stations working on the floor, not behind glass.
The environment fights the instrument
Temperature swings, vibration, obstructed sight lines, and awkward access. Method and setup decide as much of the result as the instrument spec does.
Error stacks with size
On large structures, small angular errors become real millimeters by the far end of the part. Reference control and station discipline decide everything downstream.
The numbers face scrutiny
Customer requirements, audits, and traceability demands follow the measurement. A number is only as good as the method and record behind it.
Work is moving to shops that have never had to measure like this.
The workforce shortage is pushing fabrication out of the big yards and into smaller shops and Midwest suppliers with capacity and skilled labor. That is the intent, and it is working. What travels with the work is a set of measurement expectations the receiving shop was never set up to meet.
The Navy’s stated goal for the share of shipbuilding work performed at distributed sites.
Shipbuilding work HII said in April it plans to outsource in 2026, about 30% more than 2025.
Partner locations, across eleven states, named in that same plan.
Public figures, from the Navy’s 2026 shipbuilding plan and HII’s April 2026 announcement.
Where it breaks down.
A shop can be excellent at fabrication and still be new to being measured. These are the three we see most.
Start with an assessment→Tolerances arrive without their reasoning
A supplier gets a drawing and a callout, not the fit-up the callout protects. Nobody on site can say what the tolerance is for, so it either gets chased at any cost or quietly missed.
Nobody said what the report should look like
The data gets collected in a format the prime cannot use, or answers a question nobody asked. The measurement was fine. The deliverable was not.
The predictive data gets deleted
Trends that would have flagged the next problem sit on a laptop until the laptop is replaced. The shop measured the part and learned nothing about the process.
The principles travel.
If you’re measuring large or complex parts in a real production setting, the same thinking applies. Tell us what you make and we’ll tell you straight whether we’re the right fit.