Every part ballooned. Every check in a CSV.
Most shops know the right QC route: a balloon drawing, a first-article inspection, then the recurring checks on every run. Most skip it, because someone has to balloon every drawing by hand. Signal does it on every export. Each sheet comes with its balloon drawing and a CSV of the same characteristics, numbered, with the nominal, the tolerance and the instrument to use.
Follow it on every part, without drafting a single balloon.
The balloons on the sheet and the rows in the CSV are one list, built once. The number the inspector reads off the drawing and the number Signal grades against cannot drift apart, because neither is typed.
Every characteristic numbered
Sizes, angles, cut lengths and finish checks, ballooned on the shop sheet the part is made from.
The same list, ready to import
Part, drawing, revision, operation, balloon number, nominal, tolerance, instrument and whether it is critical.
Measure everything once
Every ballooned characteristic is checked on the first piece, against the drawing it came from.
Only what drifts
Blank size, formed width and height, bend angles, tube cut length and coating thickness. Hole positions come from the same file every time, so they are not re-checked on every run.
Drawn by Signal · from the Fusion model⤢ Inspect
Drawn by Signal · from the Fusion model⤢ InspectWhat the inspector gets, row by row.
Rows from one real export, Bar Tonala's Tube Frame. Every row names the balloon drawing and the balloon it was read from, so a reading anyone disputes has a picture to go back to.
| Part | Operation | Balloon | Characteristic | Nominal | Tolerance | Instrument | Critical |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TF-ESF-BAS | Laser cutting | 1 | Overall width | 120 mm | ±0.5 | Caliper | Yes |
| TF-ESF-EVT | Tube cutting | 1 | Cut length | 1,800 mm | ±0.5 | Steel rule | Yes |
| TF-ESF-EVT | Tube cutting | 2 | End A cut angle | 45° | ±0.5 | Protractor | Yes |
| TF-FIN | Finishing | 1 | Film thickness, mean of 5 | 70 µm | −10 / +20 | Thickness gauge | Yes |
| TF-FIN | Finishing | 2 | Gloss | — | — | Gloss meter | No |
One export of the Tube Frame wrote 15 inspection CSVs beside its 16 drawings: laser cutting, tube cutting, welding and finishing.
The same design, tuned to every supplier's machine.
It is one of the most overlooked steps in the industry, and one of the most important. A slot that fits on one laser binds on another. A fold's K-factor changes with the brake. A hole that clears on one machine needs a reamer on the next. Most shops find out when the first parts do not go together, and fix it by hand every time.
Calibration keeps each supplier's own value for each assembly tool. Signal writes the sample to send them, saves the value their sample comes back with, and from then on every joint is designed to that supplier's machine.
Ready to cut
One button writes the sample for the assembly you pick, as DXF for the laser and IGS for the tube laser. Nothing in the open design changes.
On their own machine
Each sample carries the joint several ways, a little tighter or looser each time, so one cut shows which fits best.
Every design uses it
Type in what came back. Sheet Joint, Tube Joint, Tube Fold and Fasten design with it from then on, and Signal Export opens on it.
| Assembly | The sample | The value it sets |
|---|---|---|
| Sheet Joint | Four 150 mm walls, one clearance at each corner | Tab and slot clearance |
| Tube Joint | A tube stub with its tabs (IGS) and a plate with four slot sets (DXF) | Slot clearance on the tube laser |
| Tube Fold | Four blanks of one fold (IGS); type the folded legs back in | The K-factor, worked out for you |
| Fasten | A hole plate with four offsets per screw, hex seats for nuts and rivet nuts, and holes growing past the loose fit | Hole offset, seat size and the washer limit |
| Alignment | A bent cover or a tube bolted to a plate that carries the pattern four times, each a little looser | How bent and tube-laser parts line up |
⤢ InspectCalibrate once per supplier, not once per job. When you change supplier, the tools change with you: the same design comes out right on their machine, and the first parts go together.
Who approved, how it is made, and why.
In most shops nobody owns how a part gets made. The sequence lives in someone's head, the drawing gets changed on the floor, and when a part comes out wrong there is no way to know who decided what. Signal records every approval: who, when, what they approved and why. For good or for bad, the decision has a name on it.
Approved, sheet by sheet
Each sheet is approved or flagged with a discrepancy, with who and when, and prints its state: approved, open discrepancy or pending. A redrawn sheet goes back to pending, and the weldment is released only when every sheet is approved.
Corrected with a reason
Signal proposes the anchor part and the build order. Approve it, or correct it and say why; the sheets redraw with the correction and print who made it and the reason.
Proposed, challenged, accepted
Design proposes how each station is built and is the only role that accepts. The supplier counter-proposes with its reasoning; the customer states constraints. The record shows what each decision replaced.
Nothing overwritten
A weld's type and size go from proposed to counter-proposed to accepted, each step with who, their role and why. The welder's reasoning stays with the part, not just the final number.
You cannot train what you cannot see. When one person's assembly sequences keep getting corrected, the record shows it, with every reason, and that is where training starts. Every correction also teaches Signal, so the next proposal starts closer to right.
A control plan the shop will actually run.
A control plan nobody has time to run, or that asks for instruments nobody owns, gets ignored. These rules keep it practical.
Balloons never renumber
Numbers follow a fixed rule, so regenerating a sheet gives the same balloons. First-article results stay pointed at the right feature.
What the shop reaches for
A caliper up to 300 mm, a steel rule or tape beyond it, a protractor for angles, a thickness gauge for coating, a gloss meter for finish.
From the laser to the paint line
Laser cutting, bending, rolling, tube cutting and bending, welding and finishing each carry their own checks.
Spanish on the floor, same record
The sheet and the CSV print in the inspector's language, while every row keeps one stable key, so a Spanish sheet never re-points a measurement.