Horizontal VS. Vertical

[ARP]

Hello all,

I've only used verticals and I am wondering where in the part count does it pay to move to a Horizontal machining center? If you only need 15-25 pieces/week of many different types of parts, does it still make sense to use an HMC, or is the setup too time consuming for such a low part count?

We're not talking about a fleet of machines and lots of manpower here. One new machine is being considered without adding new employees. The part count is low but it is a weekly delivery. The machine can't be tied up doing 100's of pieces to stock pile because the weekly commitments won't be met. Any advice?

 

Happy New Year!

[kunfuzed]

One advantage of horizontals is they often have larger magazines. This may allow you to keep the tooling for that one specific repeat job in the carousel, and still have space for the running other small jobs as they come through.

 

The first shop I worked in only had horizontal Mazaks, no verticals. We did a lot of 100 to 1000 part orders, but it wasn't suprising to once in a while get a 25 to 50 part order. Our most common type of pallet was a 4 vise tombstone. It seems to me that it was almost just as fast to swap out pallets and change step jaws as it would be to throw in and indicate a couple of vises.

[kunfuzed]

Also if you just run all your vise jobs on that one machine(if that job your talking about runs in a vise) then that saves a lot of setup time right there.

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

You can't necessarrily look at part count alone. I know prototype shops that use Horizontals EXCLUSIVELY! Onsey twosey and do quite well. They leave all the same tools in the magazine, program from that, and they use common workholding.

 

IMHO the ONLY reason to use verticals is if your parts are too large for a horizontal say, if they won't fit in a typical 800mm Horizontal. The cost to go from an 800mm to say a 1,000mm machine is significant and the footprint of that machine is pretty significant as well.

 

HTH

[MotorCityMinion]

Also note that they typically can hold larger parts, fixtures, tombstones and such than your avgerage verticle. Although you can only load 1 large part at a time in most cases, you have the ability to machine on multiple angles/faces, bore longer distances by boring halfway through then rotating 180. and finishing the bore. The 4th axis presents the biggest advantage. In most cases, you can only run large parts in a horizontal for cost effectiveness. (Think Boring Mill with a fixed quill and no W axis.) Multi pallet machines increase flexibility as well. I'd still keep the verticles around for the smaller stuff though. All depends on quantity.

[iowajim62]

quote:

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One new machine is being considered without adding new employees. The part count is low but it is a weekly delivery.

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Horizontal with a pallet system all the way. Modular Fixturing in addition to dedicated tool magazine with probing as an added option will give you a true flexible manufacturing system (FMS) that also gives you unmanned lights out machining capabilities. The unmanned ability alone will give the weekly production numbers and a cost effective payback. After awhile you will say why didn't we do this years ago ?

jm2c

[cincy k]

Going from a vertical to a horizontal is a big jump. We are doing it currently. It takes some creativeness and alot of tought to get your setups flexible. But in my opinion it is well worth it. It may take a while to get probing routines setup esecially if you've never used one like me. But, again if will definitely pay off. Anther big improvement for us is chip control. On our verticals we are constantly in and out of the machine blowing chips out of pockets and such. this will no longer be the case on the horizontal especially with high pressure thru spindle coolant. And you can be setting up a fixture while a part is running.

[Justin Beebe at Folsom Tool]

I don't know how much money you want to spend but you can also get a horizontal with multiple pallets and leave jobs set up on them. This is good if you have a lot of repeat work. We only use two pallets but I believe our new Kitamura can actually have 16 if we want to add on. This way you can leave the jobs set up and the tools in the machine and all you have to do to switch over is change the program. Another feature you may want to consider to save set up time is a laser pre-setter. On our machine we load the tools into a magazine, call up a program and the machine runs the tools thru a laser and automatically picks up the length and diameter offset. The last thing I like to do on a horizontal or vertical mill for that matter is constantly set up jobs and completely tear them down. The more you can standardize and leave tools or fixturing in the machine the better.

[Tim Johnson]

The average quantity on our horizontals are less than 10 parts. About 5%-8% are over 25 parts. The time savings are around 60% total time vs. our verticles.

[Rick Henrickson The Boeing Co.]

I agree with apps guy the only reason to use a vertical is large parts. Horizontals are the way we can ne competitive in manufacturing!

[Slydman]

I agree with everybody.

 

Horizontale machine is a lot more efficient than verticale if you have choice to buy one or the other, i would choose horizontale machine. You can combine two or three different operation in one. Also you can adjust very accurately those setup together. Plus (as it said before) the tooling carousel contain more tools, so you don't need to remove them. All fixture offset remain the same (if you don't move the vise)

 

We have 10 VMC HAAS, plus two line of (4 HMC + 2HMC) from Hitachi and one line of Moriseiki (2HMC)plus 3 Mori HMC. We are using horizontale machine before to setup vertical.

 

We make prototyping from 50 part and more.

 

I agree with Apps too.

 

quote:

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IMHO the ONLY reason to use verticals is if your parts are too large for a horizontal say

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The major subject is how much are ready to spend money?

[crazy^millman]

Well I disagree with Apps,

 

Yeah right, Finally got one sitting on the floor. I am looking to do 12 parts per run verses the one part per run we have been doing. I am looking to combining 3 operation pre-heat treat into one and 3 operation post heat treat into one. My fixture design allows one tombstone to hole 2 different size of parts, pre-heat treat and post heat treat. I will get 18 hours of run time roughing and 24 hours of run time finishing. We will set it up on Friday before 2nd shift leaves come back Monday morning with 24 parts done on both pallets. Out shop rate is $100/hr. The machine cost $28k so I figure in about 6 weekends I will have paid for the machine. Not to bad. I am not including the overnights we will begetting in that time if you include them we will get $800 a day. So in all reality we could pay for the machine in a about 3 weeks if running at night and weekends. Us crazy people come up with stuff and I just do not understand why I think this will make our company money. I know I am a fool for pushing for a horizontal.

 

Work is work apporach is approach and if you make anything hard it becomes hard. If you make something easy, but putting some thought into it , look for productive, profitable ways then it becomes a no brainer. Standardization is the key, ball lock systems are the key. We are lucky this old/new machine came with 12 pallets, so we will be just setting up a pallets as we need them for our jobs and leaving them. There will be one pallet with 8 vices on it, just for the throw it in there and get it done jobs.

 

As Ray would say, The only way you can not make money with one of these machines is if all your work is turning work.

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

Whadja get Ron? Do tell...

[iowajim62]

quote:

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The machine cost $28k

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WOW what a deal !!!

Yeah Ron whadya get for that price ?

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

...AND 12 Pallets to boot!!!

 

Those pallets are about that price depending on the machine.

[Tony35]

quote:

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Yeah Ron whadya get for that price ?

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hampster seiki

[crazy^millman]

1992 Mazak 500mm HMC, Geared 15k 50 taper Spindle which was rebuilt 4 months ago. Set-up for renshiaw probing which we have an extra to use on it. 80 station ATC. Has thru the spindle coolant and oil and spindle cooler. The cooler unit is bigger than a bridge port. Heck of a deal, and now maybe we can start getting out our $1 million late of orders. Then we can starting working on our $2.4 million of orders we should have already started on.

 

Do not ask me to explain that I am 18 months of working on getting something and at this point just happy it is something.