Bowers Group

Bowers Group can trace their history back to 1905, part of the Spear & Jackson group, and is a leader in the field of measurement supplying to organisations across the globe.

The Baty Venture FV series of field of view (FOV) inspection machines represents a notable advancement within the Baty product line-up, offering accelerated measurement speeds across multiple parts concurrently. Distinguished by its adaptable stage options, this series facilitates seamless integration of impressive FOV measurement capabilities over expansive areas to accommodate either larger components or larger quantities of smaller parts.

We were approached by Bowers Group to create concepts for a comprehensive aesthetic refresh of their Baty Venture FV series machines, in preparation for UK launch. The intent was to give the machines a more cohesive brand identity and depart from the purely functional aesthetic of previous housings. The refresh included new colourways, revised hood design and the utilisation of polyurethane vacuum casting (replacing sheet metal fabrication) to provide enhanced scope for more complex and expressive forms. The objective was also to provide a styling basis for the face-lifting of other machines in the company portfolio.

Our industrial design team used a combination of sketches and photo-realistic CAD renders of initial concepts were presented on a short-timescale, with the chosen concept been developed to the finalised design. Optima also provided manufacturing transfer data and sourced tooling, vacuum casting and cosmetic finishing, for the first batch of machine builds.

On-going work is a family of products to be developed that will have a modern and clean aesthetic, with high quality vacuum castings and matched colourways befitting of the companies increased focus on brand identity and range coherence.

The newly housed Venture FV machines saw a successful national launch at the NEC Mach 2024 exhibition. Visitors to the stand had the exclusive opportunity to experience live demonstrations of the field of view machines, seeing first hand their capabilities in providing fast and accurate measurements of multiple parts.

Marking a significant milestone in Bowers Group’s precision measurement solutions, the Baty Venture FV series introduces heightened levels of operational efficiency and adaptability, complemented by user-intuitive software. Featuring auto part recognition functionality and a robust 20-megapixel camera, augmented by telecentric LED profile lighting and split ring LED ring lighting, this vision system achieves exceptional image fidelity.