(A machinist at Manitowoc Tool & Manufacturing in Wisconsin works on a Milltronics machining center)
Dave DeAno - Regional Sales Manager
From food to medicine to microchips, wherever something is produced or assembled, a tool room stands by to support the process. When the unexpected happens and a line goes down, it frequently falls to the tool room to produce the parts needed to resume operation. Yet while the tool room shoulders an enormous responsibility in many organizations, it often toils behind the scenes with outdated, obsolete technology.
Across the country, thousands of tool rooms still make do solely with manual machines. Not only does this limit the potential of the machinists working in them, it also places unjustifiable risk on the organizations they support. If your company falls into this category, here are six things you need to know about upgrading to computer numerical control (CNC) machines.
While the exact amount will vary by product, industry and company, the per-hour cost of having a line down is always significant. When a part fails and needs to be replaced, it’s vital that your tool room be able to act with the utmost speed and agility. Manual machines will never reach that ideal.
By comparison, CNC machines offer a tremendous advantage. A paper mill recently examined the impact of replacing its tool room’s manual machines with CNCs. It found that turnaround times on urgent parts had been reduced by an average of 75%. On certain parts, these times had shrunk from more than 8 hours to less than 2. Some companies achieve even greater benefits from upgrading to CNCs. In nearly all cases, the benefit is enough to very quickly generate a positive return on investment.
With a manual machine, the amount of operator hours required is equal to the time it takes to make a part. Not only does this create a draining, demanding work environment for an employee, it also introduces needless inefficiency. On a CNC machine, the operator creates a program and then lets the machine go to work. This improves the quality of life for your operators, while also freeing up their time for assembly, cleaning, inspection or other tasks.
If you’ve tried to replace a manual machinist in recent years, you likely realize how difficult it’s become to find someone with the necessary knowledge and skills. Many who fit the bill have already retired, and even more are rapidly approaching the end of their careers.
Young machinists entering the workforce have been trained almost exclusively on CNCs. If you want to draw from the wider pool of skilled labor, upgrading your technology is a must.
Any given tool room may need to produce certain parts somewhat regularly, but it’s also highly likely to encounter parts that may only need replaced every several years. On manual machines, there will be little to no time savings the second, third or fourth time such parts are produced. With a CNC, though, every part program is stored and readily available. Once an initial part is produced, it can be reproduced with minimal effort whenever needed, whether that’s in 10 weeks or 10 years.
Many companies have held back on upgrading to CNC machines under the belief that their operators would have a difficult time making the adjustment. This is less true now than ever before.
Conversational programming has advanced to the point where machinists of nearly any experience level can quickly and easily be trained on a CNC platform. If your machinists can read a part print, they will have no trouble learning conversational programming.
Additionally, the transition can be further streamlined by investing in a hybrid machine capable of both manual and CNC operation. Such technology makes it even easier to keep your operations running smoothly while your operators expand their skill set and become far more efficient and effective.
There’s no reason to take our claims at face value. Milltronics always welcomes discussions about how a company can evolve its operations, and we have proven out the benefits of CNC machines with conversational programming time and time again.
We would love the chance to provide your team with a demonstration at your convenience. Our team will gladly take your part print and then walk through just how easy it is to program and produce it with our conversational programming platform. Contact us today to schedule a free demo!
Dave DeAno has over a decade of experience in machine tool sales and service. Currently, he is Milltronics’ Regional Sales Manager in Texas and Western U.S. You can reach him at [email protected].
