Moving ahead with multitaskers: CMM Inspection

Ask any machine shop owner, production supervisor or human resources manager to name his or her biggest challenge, and you’re likely to hear the same answer: “We can’t find qualified people to set up and program our CNC equipment.” Isn’t it ironic then that so many manufacturing companies are turning to machine tools that are more complex rather than less—equipment that requires greater skills to operate and makes finding a machinist able to handle it even more difficult?

Help Wanted

“The elephant on every shop floor is the fact that the baby boomers are getting older and there aren’t enough people entering the trades to replace them,” said Carl Barthelson, regional sales manager at Doosan Machine Tools America, Pine Brook, New Jersey. “A case in point is the largest jet engine manufacturer in North America. The company is experiencing its largest jet engine backlog ever, but 30 percent of its workers will reach retirement age within 5 years. Now what?”

Image courtesy of Doosan Machine Tools America

Companies have two ways to combat this problem, he said. Businesses can attempt to poach employees from competitors, a move that might be good for machinists’ wages but bad for company profits. Or organizations can automate their processes. He said the best way to automate is with a multitask machine tool. Because multitaskers reduce the number of machining steps—often completing workpieces in a single setup—shops have less need for fixturing, decreased work in process and improved part quality.

In that regard, it appears that the most complex machine tools found on any shop floor make everything about manufacturing life simpler.

These expensive machine tools aren’t for only large manufacturers. Barthelson cited a five-person machine shop in western Pennsylvania whose owners went out on a financial limb several years ago by investing in a $400,000 mill/turn center. Today, the machine is at full capacity and the shop is considering a second such multitasker.

“When they were just a typical job shop filled with 2-axis lathes and 3-axis machining centers, they had to bid everything at $50 an hour,” he said. “Because they’re able to solicit more difficult work and parts with tighter tolerances and machine those parts in less time, they’re now quoting at three times that rate.”

Revisiting IMTS

Success in the machining world is no longer about keeping up with the Joneses—it’s about blowing their doors off. Perhaps one way to do this is to adopt and invest in the most advanced manufacturing technologies available, multitaskers among them.

As qualified machine tool operators become increasingly difficult to find, automation takes a commensurately larger role. Image courtesy of Okuma America

The industry is listening. Anyone who attended the International Manufacturing Technology Show in September can attest that the number and variety of multitask machine tools is staggering:

• Doosan introduced a number of models, including a “super” series of multitask machines that come with a lower turret for additional flexibility and increased throughput.
• INDEX Corp., Noblesville, Indiana, demonstrated a Traub 11-axis TNL20 lathe equipped with automated part handling and an INDEX MS40C-8 8-spindle automatic, which was able to complete two complex parts per cycle.
• Ganesh Machinery, Chatsworth, California, showed its flagship 32-CS 7-axis Swiss-style lathe and the Genturn SL42Y2 42mm, dual Y-axis multitasker.
• Charlotte, North Carolina-based Okuma America Corp. demonstrated everything from laser-equipped hybrid multitaskers to machines capable of gear cutting and skiving.

Then there was the automation. Tim Thiessen, vice president of sales and marketing at Okuma, said robots are reaching far beyond their familiar role of part loading and unloading. They can handle part inspection, deburring and changing tools, greatly expanding the capabilities of machines that were already quite capable.

“There’s definitely a strong push toward all forms of automation,” he said. “Much of that is driven by a surge of reshoring to the United States, coupled with the fact that it’s very difficult to find machinists. This means you need robots able to perform tasks once reserved for humans, as well as machines that can do more with less operator intervention.”

Making Robots Do More

One example of this shift is a robot able to change Capto-style turret tooling or load and unload toolholders that are too long or heavy for a multitasker’s automatic toolchanger, expanding the machine’s lights-out capabilities. The same robot might be called upon to place finished workpieces on a nearby coordinate measuring machine, after which the machine control can decide whether to perform a tool offset or call up a replacement one.

This twin-spindle, twin-turret machine from INDEX is just one of the dozens of available multitask configurations. Image courtesy of INDEX