One of the major limitations of productivity and quality in metal cutting is the machining accuracy of machine tools. The machining accuracy is affected by geometric and thermal errors of the machine tools. Therefore, a key requirement for improving te machining accuracy and product quality is to reduce the geometric and thermal errors of machine tools. This study models geometric error for error analysis and develops on-machine measurement system by which the volumetric erors are measured. The geometric error is modeled using form shaping function(FSF) which is defined as the mathematical relationship between form shaping motion of machine tool and machined surface. The constant terms included in the error model are found from the measurement results of on-machine measurement system. The developed on-machine measurement system consists of the spherical ball artifact (SBA), the touch probe unit with a star type stylus, the thermal data logger and the personal computer. Experiments, performed with the developed measurement system, show that the system provides a high measuring accuracy, with repeatability of ${pm}2{mu}m$ in X, Y and Z directions.