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Cartridge Cup Inspection System Problem The United States Army produces the 5.56 mm cartridge cases used in the M-16 at the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant in Independence, MO.  The cartridge cases are produced on five separate manufacturing lines, each with a production rate of 20 parts per second.  The case brass used for production is purchased in the form of small brass cups from outside vendors.  Historically the incoming brass was manually tested using a variety of hand-held gauges.   Unfortunately, this method is too slow to provide a statistically significant sample set to infer the quality of the purchased components. Solution QUEST developed and delivered the cup inspection system that measures seven critical characteristics of the brass cartridge cup.  This includes; weight, height, base thickness, inside diameter, outside diameter, wall thickness and relative hardness.   The vibratory fed system processes the cups at a rate of one cup per second.  This allows almost 30,000 cups to be inspected per 8 hour shift.