Hello Kim.
All of those answers above are great ones. One additional thing to think about. No matter what CMM you do get, none of the software applications that come with the machines will completely comply with the DMIS specs.

Many do work very diligently to comply but, to the best of my knowledge you wont find one that will do all of the things that you need without some difficulty. One of the things to keep in mind is the service. There is nothing worse than trying to contact someone and getting the run around. If you are going to use a third party application to create the code from a model, than some of the code may not work on the CMM. With some of the machines none of the code will work. The best of luck with your endeavor. Call me if you would like.

Ray Admire
Quality Engineer, CMM Programming
Lockheed Martin Vought Systems
972-603-2074