Fully Leveraging Machine Uptime (Part 2)

Faced with pressures on costs and profits, and the failure of numerous industry rivals, Mr. Schumacher and his daughter sought solutions to optimize their manufacturing processes, starting with Invest in market shares with moderate returns. WESCHU has invested about 15,000 euros to buy basic equipment to support production.

With auxiliary equipment, employees can fix the workpiece and electrode from the machine tool, reducing setup time even when presets are made on the machine itself. According to Schumacher’s calculations, the point clamp system alone does not increase the total lifetime of the machine. The reason is that employees can fix hard workpieces or fabricate multiple workpieces at the same time. By arranging these items on the machine just before the end of the shift, employees in the later shift can start work immediately with their work.

According to Schumacher, the measuring system pays for itself after just six months. Investigations from ZEISS also indicate that adding a measuring machine almost doubles the production time for a machine tool, while reducing the manufacturing costs and the costs per component by up to 40 percent. And that is not all. Fewer machine tools are required to produce the same number of parts.

Another persuasive argument: the measurement on a measuring system is more precise, and it makes quality information available. At WESCHU and its subsidiary for contract manufacturing, Innovative Metall Technologien GmbH (IMT), the workpieces are measured fully automated on a ZEISS measuring machine and controlled against its data after each production step. Only the ‘good’ components are machined further. “This way, we avoid wasting a lot of time and energy on scrappage,” explains Ms. Schumacher. This is another factor that significantly increases companies’ competitiveness.

According to Schumacher’s calculations, anyone who enhances their zero-point clamping system and measuring system with an automated solution, such as the Chameleon machine from the company Zimmer & Kreim or a fully automated production cell, easily increases the total running time of their machines to more than 4,000 hours and generates a profit exceeding 110,000 euros per machine. Companies can even achieve 6,000 production hours with automated measuring systems and machine loading, which enables them to manufacture parts 24/7.

Source: Quality Magazine