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15 CAM Initiatives For Sustainable Machining Business Effectiveness


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Ran across this while searching for info to put into our website:

http://www.mmsonline.com/cdn/cms/CAMInitiativesWhitePaper-withcaptions-.pdf

 

How to take advantage of evolving Mastercam CAM software capabilities to become progressively more effective in your manufacturing business niche

 

 

 

It's a story I have heard over and over again. There are two shops in the same market with similar equipment, software and customers.
One shop is struggling to get enoughwork and maintain healthy profit margins.
The shop's management is convinced that a competitor is undercutting them with ridiculously low pricing that will ultimately cause both
businesses to suffer.
But if you visit the other shop, you will discover that the business is thriving.
Truth is, the first shop is not being underbid, it's being out-machined.
Jimmy Wakeford, Owner, Barefoot CNC

 

 

Great info for shops looking to improve manufacturing throughput.

 

 

 

 

 

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Truth is, the first shop is not being underbid, it's being out-machined.

 

What a great statement!

Nice read

:cheers:

 

Jimmy is a great guy. I never got to meet him when I was in NC, but I spoke to him on the phone several times. A great, down to earth guy who is really helpful. If I could use him as our reseller, I would :)

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I recently visited the shop of a friend of mine and he complained that a certain part was so cheap it was a commodity item and he simply couldn't make them profitably at $130 each. I almost choked because I saw that part as 25-30 minutes of spindle time with the right machine and the right tools and I could make a pile of cash running them. Then he fired up his machine and started running a 1/2" MA Ford 134 series rougher at 80 ipm in aluminum with a 1/2" LOC and I knew why he was having trouble. I didn't offer any advice because I knew he didn't want to hear it, I have tried in the past. He is happy with what he does and I guess that is what matters. He just works a lot harder and longer than he needs to. We run that same cutter at 400 ipm and 3/4" LOC and if there is a lot of material to remove we will run up to 600...

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I hear ya Bob, seeing and hearing things like that just kill me. But your right, some people are just happy doin' what they do.....But some of us (here) live to push the edge and see the possibility of continual improvement.

 

In my (advanced) classes everyone is pretty surprised when I say use feed override until stuff breaks.  $andvik tools, and  we easily go over 600+ipm in steel. Frequently I surprise myself how far it can be pushed. I tell my students go tell your boss what you just saw, and tell them you know how to program it. Also tell them they are competing against shops running this kind of tooling and technology. 

 

Eh, preaching to the choir here fellas :)

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I hear ya Bob, seeing and hearing things like that just kill me. But your right, some people are just happy doin' what they do.....But some of us (here) live to push the edge and see the possibility of continual improvement.

 

In my (advanced) classes everyone is pretty surprised when I say use feed override until stuff breaks. $andvik tools, and we easily go over 600+ipm in steel. Frequently I surprise myself how far it can be pushed. I tell my students go tell your boss what you just saw, and tell them you know how to program it. Also tell them they are competing against shops running this kind of tooling and technology.

 

Eh, preaching to the choir here fellas :)

So funny to hear you say this. I said to a young machinist the other day, if you don't break a tool because you were tying to feed to fast how do you know what the limit is. I have no problem if someone breaks a tool for this reason but if you are smashing tools into the workpiece or a vise that's a different story.

 

Some guys running 1000mm/min plunge feed and max 3000mm/min in fear of breaking a tool. Oh and by the way we cut aluminum almost exclusively. I showed them helical entry at 5000mm/min and they were like wow, aren't you gonna break the tool? Dynamic milling blew their minds lol.

 

I don't blame these guys because when they were coming up they had no influence to show them how things are out there. Ignorance is bliss.

 

This was a good read and +1 to preaching to the choir.

And does anyone have any thoughts on how to help bring out the continual improvement/pushing the limits idea to other workers? Or do you either have it or you don't type of thing?

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And does anyone have any thoughts on how to help bring out the continual improvement/pushing the limits idea to other workers? Or do you either have it or you don't type of thing?

In my experience, there are 2x types of people. 95% won't want to do it (they may say they do but...) because they'll lose their over time or work will start to dry up in the section so it's job preservation.

Then there's the rest that will embrace it.

I haven't worked in many different places but worked with a lot of different people - the last place when running a job fast (15 metres/min feed on a Matsuura R800) the owner started moaning that it will wear out the machine prematurely running that quickly.

You can't teach pork :D

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problem there is, if I told someone in our shop, keep bumping up the feed till something almost breaks, what they would do is just turn the feed way up and go back to whatever game they were playing on their I-phone. Then, after they snap off a $200 cutter, they'll stick in a new one, press cycle start without checking to make sure nothing moved, and scrap the rest of the order.

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problem there is, if I told someone in our shop, keep bumping up the feed till something almost breaks, what they would do is just turn the feed way up and go back to whatever game they were playing on their I-phone. Then, after they snap off a $200 cutter, they'll stick in a new one, press cycle start without checking to make sure nothing moved, and scrap the rest of the order.

I HAD one of those guys... It is tough to find people that have their head in what they are doing vs. guys on autopilot. I always tell the guys here there is no autopilot in this shop. If they want a mindless job go work at the pizza parlor or gas station.

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