Royal Rota-Rack®

That’s true - it might. However, today’s CNC’s are equipped with all kinds of sensors that immediately shut everything down upon any sign that something has gone wrong. If your machine crashes, you might have to deal with an expensive repair. But what you also must accept is that no operator is a psychic – when was the last time one of your people shut a machine down just before it crashed?

Again, that may happen, but it won’t happen every time. In fact, you’ll soon realize that this hardly ever happens, and when it does, the value of the scrapped material is so low in relation to the value of the finished parts that it doesn’t matter. One of our customers said it best – “$300 worth of aluminum is nothing compared to $3,500 worth of finished parts!”

Like it or not, automation is here to stay. Look at the agricultural industry – it is estimated that 100 years ago 30-40% of the American population made its living from agriculture. Today that number is about 3%, yet we produce much more food, and of much higher quality, than ever before. That would never have been possible without automation advancements such as the combine.

Automation can actually improve life for your employees by freeing them from repetitive, mundane tasks so they can tackle more complex jobs within your company, and potentially earn more money because they are doing jobs with a higher value. For example, as we became more automated here at Royal, many machine loaders/unloaders advanced into the assembly department. This was a higher-paying position, and we had a need for increased personnel because we were making more parts each week.

Sure, over time your need to increase headcount will be reduced and you will become a much leaner company. However, our experience is that this almost always occurs through natural attrition, and rarely does simple automation result in an immediate need to cut staffing levels.

For roughing tools and large drills, use load detection (standard on many machines) to sense tool breakage. If you don’t have load detection, utilize tool management

Example – if you know a certain tool typically lasts for at least 50 parts, switch it out after 40. If you don’t have load detection or tool management capabilities, figure out your weak link and adjust your run-size according to what that tool can safely handle. Whatever you do, don’t decrease speeds and feeds in the hopes of extending the life of a $9 insert!

Produce chips - not stringers. Leverage the expertise of your cutting tooling suppliers – they can offer you suggestions for optimizing speeds and feeds, let you test various cutting tool geometries, etc. In our own shop, we had an application where we had to try several different approaches for a troublesome grooving operation until we found the optimal one.

Another important aspect of chip control, especially on sub-spindles, is cleaning your workholding between parts with an air blast to ensure that the next part is correctly seated. If you don’t have air blast on your machine, use a large diameter thru-coolant drill and blast the chuck with coolant while it is spinning.

It is also important to keep the coolant inside the machine instead of dumping it out with each finished workpiece. Techniques include air-blasting the part before unloading, adding drain holes to the part collection basket, refraining from positioning the part collection basket under the part until just before the cut-off tool breaks thru, reducing or shutting off coolant flow during part-off, etc.

Learn how each of your machines is affected by heat. One of our large Rota-Rack® customers discovered that not all of his machines are stable enough to handle certain high-tolerance jobs over the course of an unmanned shift, so he simply schedules his jobs accordingly.

Your employees must embrace lights-out manufacturing, and realize that it doesn’t make their jobs less secure – it makes them more secure because it better positions your company against domestic and foreign competition. They need to change their thinking from “Can this job run lights-out?” to “How long can I run this job lights-out?”

Ask yourself “How many shops that thought CNC was a passing fad are still around today?” If you don’t invest in the latest available technology to make your shop as competitive as possible, how can you expect to remain competitive against those who do? The Royal Rota-Rack® is one of the simplest, least-expensive automation devices you can employ, and the payback is both immediate and ongoing.