Hexagon Closes Waygate Technologies Acquisition, Adding NDT to Metrology Chain

Hexagon has closed its acquisition of Waygate Technologies, the non-destructive testing (NDT) specialist previously owned by Baker Hughes, and folded the business into its Manufacturing Intelligence division. The deal pairs two measurement chains that quality departments have historically bought from separate suppliers: external geometry and surface metrology on one side, internal structural inspection on the other.

Manufacturing Intelligence builds coordinate measuring machines (CMMs), portable measuring devices, scanners and metrology software. Hexagon's instruments quantify the outside of a part — dimensions, form, surface. Waygate Technologies supplies what CMMs cannot reach: industrial computed tomography (CT), field radiography, ultrasonic testing (UT) and remote visual inspection (RVI) for internal structure and hard-to-access areas, without cutting, damaging or manipulating the component under test.

What does the combined portfolio cover?

The two product lines barely overlap. Hexagon measures external geometry with high precision; Waygate interrogates porosity, wall thickness and internal defects through volumetric and acoustic methods. In inspection terms, the acquisition closes the chain from surface scan to internal integrity check within one vendor's catalog and, potentially, one data environment.

The physics distinction matters to buyers. Geometric metrology compares a part's external features against a nominal model at micrometer-level repeatability. NDT methods interrogate bulk material: CT reconstructs internal geometry from X-ray projections, radiography images density variations, UT detects discontinuities from acoustic reflections, and RVI places optics where a human eye cannot go. Each method answers a different failure question, and quality teams in safety-critical sectors have long needed both — typically from separate systems, data sets and suppliers, as Hexagon itself notes.

Which industries drove the logic?

The two companies already share customers in aerospace and automotive, and both target electronics, battery manufacturing and energy. In these sectors, internal defects — voids, delaminations, inclusions — can be as disqualifying as dimensional error, and they frequently escape external measurement entirely. Hexagon's statement says the combined group can now merge the two views of a part and give customers a clearer, more complete picture of quality.

Andreas Renulf, President of Manufacturing Intelligence at Hexagon, framed the move as a portfolio extension: "Waygate Technologies' expertise in non-destructive testing extends our precision measurement portfolio from the surface to the interior of a component."

Waygate Technologies CEO Michael Bellamy emphasized continuity for existing users. "Our customers have always told us that quality depends on understanding a part from the external geometry right through to the internal characteristics," Bellamy said. "Our customers can continue to rely on their familiar products, services and contacts. Ongoing projects, services agreements and orders continue without interruption."

What the deal does not yet specify

Hexagon disclosed no purchase price, no revenue figures for Waygate Technologies and no integration timeline. The announcement is silent on whether NDT data will flow into Hexagon's existing metrology software environment, on branding of the Waygate name, and on any consolidation of service and calibration organizations — questions that matter to labs running mixed fleets of CMMs and inspection systems under combined maintenance contracts.

Both companies describe their engineering heritage in decades and their customer base as quality teams that cannot afford uncertainty, but no measured performance claims accompany the announcement; the deal is a portfolio and channel story, not a product launch.

For quality managers in aerospace, automotive and battery production, the open question is integration: whether external and internal inspection data will converge in a single software pipeline with common traceability, or remain parallel catalogs under one corporate owner.