Machines/Accessories/Controls

Due to the current crisis, the existence of many CNC companies is at stake. The COVID-19 outbreak has highlighted the vulnerability of complex global manufacturing supply chains. To make matters worse, the CNC industry relies heavily on on-time deliveries. Delivery delays of just one day can create gaps in the entire supply chain, which can lead to exploding costs, enormous sales losses or even a complete standstill.

With the arrival of Industry 4.0, a new business model is emerging for how part manufacturers acquire machine tools: equipment as a service (Eaas). Graham Immerman, vice president of marketing for Northampton, Massachusetts-based MachineMetrics Inc., effectively covers this topic in his new 12-page ebook/white paper titled “Equipment-as-a-Service: A Brave New World for Machine Tool Builders.” In an interview with CTE, he said, “Instead of buying a machine and fully financing it or paying cash, you can pay as you use it.”

Imagine you’re trying to learn a new tune on the piano, but the sheet music only has one note out of every ten. Wouldn’t that be pretty hard? That’s what it’s like learning what your machine is doing with data that only plays a few notes from the entire piece. Just like Chopin, a machine writes complex, nuanced melodies that get shortchanged when an incomplete picture is represented in the notes it plays, the data.

Researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology have developed a system for fully automated monitoring of ballscrew drives in machine tools. A camera integrated directly into the nut of the drive generates images that artificial intelligence continuously monitors for signs of wear, helping to reduce machine downtime.