Florence, Ky.-based Mazak Corp. hosted the Midwest Technology + Education Event May 1-3 at its Midwest Regional Headquarters and Technology Center in Schaumburg, Ill. The machine tool builder exhibited and demonstrated an array of equipment, including milling, turning, 5-axis and multitask machines, and nine of the company’s Value Inspired Partners exhibited at the event.
In addition, Mazak personnel provided seminars in the facility’s main presentation room, and a selection of exhibitors offered presentations in four “knowledge zones.” One of the latter presentations was “Internet of Things Now Drives the Shop Floor” by Vytas Cijunelis, Midwest manager for DP Technology Corp. The Camarillo, Calif., company is the developer of ESPRIT CAD/CAM software.
He said the industrial internet of things is actually the markets of things. IIoT forms partnerships to build the next industrial revolution—Industry 4.0—and keeps end users from having to build all the needed manufacturing solutions themselves.
One element of Industry 4.0 is advanced machine awareness, Cijunelis said. With the appropriate software, this knowledge allows parts manufacturers to calculate multiple-axis toolpaths that account for machine tool kinematics and limits to prevent possible issues that are visible only during machining simulation or actual machining. Those issues include unwinding, over-travels and collisions. Rather than provide a warning about a problem, issues are solved automatically.
The desired result is a consistency between upstream virtual processing and machine behavior, he added. “Bring the distance from virtual to reality as close as possible,” Cijunelis said.
He said tightening that distance requires a digital twin of the machining environment that is highly accurate. If it’s not accurate, the digital twin offers no value.
Ultimately, users need confidence in the simulation to run an optimized machining program. “Where the rubber meets the road is the NC code,” Cijunelis said.
Related Glossary Terms
- gang cutting ( milling)
gang cutting ( milling)
Machining with several cutters mounted on a single arbor, generally for simultaneous cutting.
- milling
milling
Machining operation in which metal or other material is removed by applying power to a rotating cutter. In vertical milling, the cutting tool is mounted vertically on the spindle. In horizontal milling, the cutting tool is mounted horizontally, either directly on the spindle or on an arbor. Horizontal milling is further broken down into conventional milling, where the cutter rotates opposite the direction of feed, or “up” into the workpiece; and climb milling, where the cutter rotates in the direction of feed, or “down” into the workpiece. Milling operations include plane or surface milling, endmilling, facemilling, angle milling, form milling and profiling.
- numerical control ( NC)
numerical control ( NC)
Any controlled equipment that allows an operator to program its movement by entering a series of coded numbers and symbols. See CNC, computer numerical control; DNC, direct numerical control.
- turning
turning
Workpiece is held in a chuck, mounted on a face plate or secured between centers and rotated while a cutting tool, normally a single-point tool, is fed into it along its periphery or across its end or face. Takes the form of straight turning (cutting along the periphery of the workpiece); taper turning (creating a taper); step turning (turning different-size diameters on the same work); chamfering (beveling an edge or shoulder); facing (cutting on an end); turning threads (usually external but can be internal); roughing (high-volume metal removal); and finishing (final light cuts). Performed on lathes, turning centers, chucking machines, automatic screw machines and similar machines.
Author
Alan holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Southern Illinois University Carbondale. Including his 20 years at CTE, Alan has more than 30 years of trade journalism experience.
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