Haas Automation Cell API — Lights-Out Cell Integration with International Partner

The business unit ordered an externally developed automated cell without involving the software team. Haas engineers in Germany needed a stable API contract to build against while the production version was still being designed — and the proprietary production code could not be shared.

The scope was larger than initially described: beyond part sign-off and serial number retrieval, the API would need to directly command a Keyence laser marker and poll a Wenzel CMM for measurement results — hardware integrations that had to be negotiated and designed mid-project. Simultaneously, the Haas team in Germany needed something to develop against immediately, with no access to any of Turbocam's real infrastructure or data.

A minimal dummy API was built that matched the exact OpenAPI spec of the production version endpoint-for-endpoint, with Bearer authentication wired in identically. A lightweight HTML mock UI let the Haas developer simulate state changes on the CMM and laser marker — triggering the same async polling flow their controller would use in production. The whole thing was containerized into a single Docker image and emailed to Germany. On the production side, the layered architecture from the Keyence laser cell was extended: the laser marker communication library was reused as-is, and a new integration layer was added to command the Wenzel CMM and surface its results through the same request/poll API pattern the Haas controller expected.

When the machine arrived in the US, integration was completed in roughly a day. Architectural improvements back-ported cleanly to the previous cell generation, validated by existing unit tests with no regressions.