Shop cleans up its act with MQL

END USER: Sigma Machine Inc., (269) 345-6316, www.sigmamachine.net.
CHALLENGE: Eliminate excess coolant to improve shop floor safety and cleanliness.
SOLUTION: Minimum quantity lubrication systems.
SOLUTION PROVIDER: Unist Inc., (800) 253-5462, www.unist.com.

Around 2 years ago, Sigma Machine Inc. was a mess. Literally, coolant covered the floors of the Kalamazoo, Mich., aluminum-extrusion machine shop, operators tracked it from the shop floor to the offices, and the slippery fluids posed a safety hazard. Also, the shop’s floors are epoxy painted and the work area is brightly lit, which only made the watery mess more noticeable.

To combat this issue, the shop installed minimum quantity lubrication (MQL) systems from Unist Inc., Grand Rapids, Mich., on its CNC mills—but the result was more than a clean floor.

“The original issue was simple housekeeping,” said Jim Van Weelden, president and owner of Sigma Machine, “but once we made the switch, there were a number of benefits that we got that we weren’t even looking for in the first place. Our maintenance costs are way down because there are fewer coolant tanks to be purged and less coolant to be disposed of, and our cycle times have decreased because we’re able to run the machines at higher speeds.”

The newly clean work environment is important not only to management, but to the 100 employees who work there. While coolant was being tracked all over the building and, presumably, back to employees’ cars and homes, employees can now come to work clean and go home clean.