Machine Tool and Automotive Industry TECHNOLOGY UPDATES Machine tool consumption up 23.9 percent U.S. machine tool consumption for June was up nearly 24 percent over last year, according to the United States Machine Tool Consumption report. Machine tool consumption totaled $322.68 million, up 23.9 percent when compared with 2005, and officials were optimistic that the growth would continue. “Counter to concerns that the 32-month expansion is ready to turn, the market is still 35 percent lower than its 1997 peak. There is still a lot of room to grow,” AMT's president John Byrd III, said in a statement. The USMTC report provides regional and national U.S. consumption data on domestic and imported machine tools and related equipment. According to the report, the Southern Region showed the highest rate of growth in the country, up 19.1 percent. Other regions: Northeast Region, down 10.3 percent; Midwestern Region, level; Central Region, up 6.9 percent; and the Western Region, down 17.4 percent. The whole story. Bosch Rexroth View: With IMTS now behind us, the show buzz and growing confidence in the economy should allow the industry to sustain growth through the remainder of 2006. More on system solutions Succeeding beyond a specialty This shop watched its chosen niche become less profitable. Its response was a dramatic investment in new equipment, along with an information-related change that has made all of the shop’s equipment more cost-effective. The most important capability for a turning shop is the ability to turn a profit. Bryon Bettinardi, owner of Bryco Machine in Tinley Park, Illinois, was watching this capability decline. During the 1990s, the shop had a specialty. Small-diameter parts requiring precision turning, milling and drilling could be produced at high efficiency on the shop’s bar-fed CNC Swiss-type lathes. For much of this time, says Mr. Bettinardi, there were fewer than 100 such machines in the Chicagoland area. That is not the case anymore. He believes that the number today is about 700. As the capacity has multiplied, the profit margins for this work have gone down. The shop had to change. The problem was, the change had to be big. The whole story. Bosch Rexroth View: Capitalizing on a niche market is great as long as the market supports it, but some companies can really take a hit when they narrow their focus and the picture suddenly changes. Fortunately, as networking and communication platforms are increasing in their adaptability to multiple applications, investments in equipment don’t have to be a complete loss if a company decides to answer a different call. More on Turning and milling. Staying ahead with machine tools and robots Productivity advances resulting from the technology revolution are reshaping global competition. Running unaided is out. Winning in manufacturing, ultimately, is determined by how fast you can run while armed with the latest technology. U.S. manufacturing technology consumption in May grew to $319.40 million, according to data compiled by the Association of Manufacturing Technology (AMT) and the American Machine Tool Distributors' Association (AMTDA). The total was up 21.4% from April and up 29.7% from the total of $246.27 million reported for May 2005. With a year-to-date total of $1,437.11 million, 2006 was up 22.0% compared with 2005. "May's growth in consumption is particularly encouraging because it is shared across every region of the country," says John J. Healy, AMTDA president. "While May was one of the four best months in the current recovery, the important point is that the trend in orders continues to be upward." The whole story. Bosch Rexroth View: Competition is no longer linked to supplier proximity. It includes many other factors, and productivity is just one piece of the puzzle. While globalization appears to have leveled the playing field, keeping up with technological advances is really where the advantage lies. More on system solutions. Robots step up to machining Despite some inherent limitations, multi-axis robots are being adapted for milling, drilling, and other hardtool machining processes. We are still a long way from a sci-fi world in which sleek, articulated-arm robots perform every conceivable manufacturing operation on every material. Given their accuracy requirements and the hardness of their workpiece materials, most metal-cutting applications depend on dedicated, rigid, CNC-based machines. By contrast, robots are flexible—in both good and bad ways: They can be tooled and programmed for various operations, but their construction lacks the stiffness necessary for tight-tolerance machining. Overall, the importance of robotics continues to grow, especially in the automotive sector. Auto suppliers and manufacturers are the biggest users of robots, and together accounted for 70% of the robots ordered in 2005, according to the Robotic Industries Association (Ann Arbor, MI). Welding and material handling made up over 85% of applications for robots shipped in North America last year, but robots are also being used for higher-force applications as well, including material removal. The whole story. Bosch Rexroth View: Just as some niche shops are adapting their resources to new applications and market demands, so too will available technologies like robotics investigate alternate uses and seek to evolve. More on system solutions . Hybrids make a move to the plant floor Machine tools are taking a new look at hydraulics to help green up their industry. In the 1990s, Japan passed legislation challenging its industry to reduce energy consumption — or face stiff tax penalties. Companies had to reduce energy consumption by a specified amount each year for a certain period of time. To meet these goals, much of the country’s industry — particularly machine-tool builders — took a long look at hydraulics. A typical hydraulic system uses a constant speed motor that operates at about 1800 rpm. During idle periods, the electric motor continues to rotate at full speed, perhaps consuming 30-45% of full load amperage. Enter inverter-based hydraulic pumps. In essence, the inverter causes the system to pump only as much as it needs to maintain constant pressure. Many machine-tool manufacturers use inverter-based hydraulic pumps on some of their new models. Overall, the technology has taken Japan by storm, particularly within the machine-tool industry, where about a third of the equipment being built uses some version of the technology. The whole story. Bosch Rexroth View: Look for more of these types of energy-saving advances to make their way into the U.S. market and other globally competitive, energy-conscious countries. More on system solutions. The real cost of runout A seemingly small amount of runout can still be too large for the tool. Reduce this runout, and tool life or productivity may dramatically increase. What constitutes “good runout” for a cutting tool in a machining center? Many shops think about the answer to that question in terms of a single number. When precision toolholder supplier Big Kaiser (Elk Grove Village, Illinois) informally surveyed metalworking facilities to ask what they considered acceptable runout, the consensus seemed to be about 0.0005 inch. Jack Burley is Big Kaiser’s vice president of sales and engineering. He says that consensus is correct—sometimes. If the tool is 3/4 inch in diameter or bigger, then 0.0005 inch may be good runout indeed. But applying this standard to all of the tools in the shop can be a costly mistake, he says. For tools that are very small, reducing runout to 0.0001 inch or less can yield considerable gains in tool life and productivity. A recent example involved a shop that held runout to 0.0002 inch for a precision drilling operation. This shop (like most other shops) considered 0.0002-inch runout to be small. However, switching to a toolholder designed for precision clamping allowed the shop to reduce this runout to 0.00009 inch, or 90 micro-inches. Forces and wear on the tiny drill became more evenly distributed. As a result, the shop was able to cut faster with this tool, realizing a cycle time savings of 20 percent. In addition, tool life increased by 3 times. The whole story. Bosch Rexroth View: All machining companies are advised to take a 360º view of runout, as it doesn’t just affect material costs. It also impacts tool life, machine wear, energy consumption, and many other seemingly invisible factors. More on system solutions. Putting a stop to lathes Operators often struggle with keeping the end of bar work pressed against the length stop as the chuck actuates and the drawtube pulls backwards when working on a lathe. This slows the job down because operators, uncertain if the bar end is against the stop, will open the chuck and make a second attempt at properly positioning the bar. One solution to this problem is mounting some sort of length stop in the machine's spindle drawtube. For instance, some shops bolt a block to the back of the 0.500-in. spindle liner or to the spindle itself. The block is threaded for a 1/2-13 rod running down to the chuck with a nut securing it. However, be aware that the cylinder for actuating a lathe's chuck is often on the outboard end of the spindle, and the drawtube may go all the way through. The only part that does not move is at the end of the cylinder. Some lathes may have a pattern of tapped holes on the outboard end of the cylinder, used to bolt in filler tubes. This could be a place to bolt a stop. The whole story. Bosch Rexroth View: OEMs aren’t the only ones who can provide solutions to the day-to-day challenges on the shop floor. The front-line machine operator is always a valuable resource for such problem solving and is perhaps the one most motivated to find a solution. More on system solutions. Want to receive Technology Updates by e-mail? Need Expert Help ?