Turning center is precise to a 'tee'

END USER: Independent Protection Co. Inc., (574) 533-4116, www.ipclp.com.
CHALLENGE: Bring outsourced parts in-house that were being milled and machine them on a CNC lathe.
SOLUTION: A 6-axis turning center equipped with a bar feeder.
SOLUTION PROVIDERS: Eurotech, (352) 799-5223, www.eurotechelite.com; Superior Equipment Solutions, (937) 704-0357, www.supequipment.com.

Because lightning strikes Earth more than 4.3 million times per day, protection from this form of Mother Nature’s wrath is in great demand. That’s where Independent Protection Co. Inc. enters the picture. The Goshen, Ind., company manufactures high-performance lightning rods and other lightning protection devices and offers system design and layout services, installation assistance and onsite supervision.

IPC also makes parts for transit buses and specialty vehicles for its sister company, Turtle Top, New Paris, Ind. One type of part for those applications is a steel seat track T-nut.

IPC outsourced production, but wanted to bring it in-house to reduce lead times and costs, noted Plant Manager Tony Bradley. He added that the machine shops producing those parts for IPC were running them on milling machines, which requires paying labor to cut the raw workpiece material, load it in a jig, machine the parts while monitoring the machine throughout the day and then unload the finished part from the jig.

Having a shop produce the parts on a bar-fed lathe would alleviate a great deal of operator intervention, but finding a job shop to do that proved problematic. “The companies we talked to did not want to run the steel T-nuts on their CNC lathes as they would not guarantee their machines could run them,” Bradley said.

Plant Manager Tony Bradley says the Eurotech E42SL-Y turning center enabled IPC bring production of outsourced T-nut parts (inset) in-house and reduced the scrap from about 25 percent to 3 percent.

He started researching offerings from lathe builders and quickly ran into a dead end with the first builder. “Once we got into the T-nuts, he said, ‘My machine won’t do that. I won’t guarantee it will hold up and do it accurately,’ ” Bradley recalled. “Then I ran across a Web page that said, ‘Take the Eurotech challenge,’ so I answered the questions on it and the next day I got a call from Brendon Gideon at Superior Equipment, Eurotech’s distributor for Indiana.”

After showing him the T-nut parts and some lightning protection parts that IPC wanted to turn, Bradley noted Superior Equipment Solutions, Franklin, Ohio, guaranteed the Eurotech E42SL-Y 6-axis turning center would be an effective solution. Eurotech is located in Brooksville, Fla.

After purchasing the machine, which is fed 44 "-long bar stock, IPC received training from Eurotech. “We didn’t know anything about programming the machine and in 3 days they had us trained,” Bradley said.

IPC produces more than 14,000 T-nuts annually on the Eurotech machine, as well as a similar volume of lightning protection parts made of bronze, aluminum and copper. Prior to acquiring the Eurotech lathe, IPC machined those lightning protection parts on manual lathes and drill presses.

In addition, IPC machined workpieces produced via sand molding in its foundry. That casting process, however, can create inclusions in the workpieces, Bradley pointed out. “Sometimes you get hollow areas in the center of them that we call ‘blow holes,’ ” he said. “Scrap rates can go through the roof. With the Eurotech, we’re doing them out of billet rod. It’s more accurate and produces a better part all around.”

After switching to billet rod, the scrap rate dropped from around 25 percent to less than 3 percent, while throughput time dropped 80 percent, from 5 days to 1 day, on most parts, Bradley said. IPC also reduced the number of mold lines in the foundry from three to one. The remaining line primarily produces flat bases that can’t be turned.

In addition, Bradley said purchasing the E42SL-Y enabled IPC, which runs one shift, to go from 15 machine operators to nine, running lights out the rest of the day and on weekends. “I don’t live too far from work, so I can load the machine up, then pop in and throw some more bars on when it’s empty.”