Vertical Integration

[Celling It]

Hello all,

An introduction is probably appropriate since I'm new to this forum:

I manage a small-medium size Aluminum Green Sand Foundry (approximately 30 employees) producing castings from ounces to around 700lbs max. We're servicing a wide variety of industries (from simple outdoor furniture through military and increasingly aerospace).

At present, we manage and outsource a sizable amount of casting machining to local machine shops. Historically, we have also missed out on a lot of opportunity with other customers who have chosen to manage their own machining needs because we have had a difficult time getting competitive pricing on jobbing size orders.

This brings us to today. We've cleared out a lot of obsolete equipment / materials, re-arranged the plant layout and made a commitment to providing more value added services to our customers by vertically integrating the machining portion of our supply chain.

Here's the stumbling block(s):
I'm proficient in Mastercam and Solidworks, but have almost ZERO practical experience operating a machine. Furthermore, my efforts are mainly focussed on setting company direction, monitoring overall performance and dealing with day to day business issues.

In an effort to avoid wallowing in my own mediocrity for years to come by purchasing the wrong equipment, I'm asking you all for guidance. I'm not looking to mooch an easy answer from anyone, but I am looking for a helping push in the right direction.

We're looking for one VMC and one Lathe to start right now. It needs to be able to machine Aluminum castings primarily, but will need the flexibility to machine steel and iron (when our castings need inserts etc). Furthermore, our sites are not just set on machining our own production runs. Once we have comfortably integrated as much of our outsourced work as reasonable, we'll be marketing ourselves competitively for other work. Our average production run is around 300 pieces, however they range from 5 to 5000 at their extremes.

Brand information is useful, machine specs I should be looking for would be great, professional association information I could turn to would be terrific, or even some recommended publication where I could get a thorough grasp of what I'm looking at would be ideal.

Before salespeople start coming to my office, I'd like to know what the people who know best think.

Thanks,

[vishnu]

Hi,
Nice idea to setup your own machining center. Vertical Integration is the need of the hour. From your point i understand that you will need to machine from a min of 300 pcs to 5000 + pcs. The size or the brand of the machine greatly depends on how big your parts are and what kind of job profile to be carried out. There is no particular machine which can machine only aluminium .... you can machine MS , castings etc. but it all depends on the quality,productivity and the size of the machined component. I would now suggest you to do some small paper work before you proceed.

1. Chart out size of Minimum sized component size to the maximum size.
2. Operations needed to be carried out. example some compnents may require 5 axis machining.
3. budget which can arranged because you will need auxilary / support equipment for the machine shop to rationalise productvity and remaining cost effective.
4. Quality control / measuring instruments.
5. Man power needed

If you can give me some drawings of your smallest part and the largest part to be Turned/machined i think i will be able to guide you further.

Regards,

Vishnu

[lerman]

You've said that right now this work is being farmed out.

I would go to my present vendors and see what they are using and what they might recommend. The smart ones will be helpful. They know that there will still be some fraction of your work that they will get.

Ken

[Celling It]

Vishnu, thanks for your response.

1. Min for turning and VMC 1"OD / X1"xY1"
Max for turning and VMC would be 42"X 36"Y or 24" OD
Most parts fall into the size range of a coffee cup to an NFL football
2. Drill, Tap, Face, Pocket, Thread, Ream, Profile etc. Based on the quantities we run, at least for now I don't see a need for a pallet machine, we'd probably need 5-10 tools in the carousel (although more would be nice if the cost substantiated it). A 3 axis machine would probably be enough to serve 50%-60% of the products, and the others could be managed by alternating orientations in the fixtures. I'm not a big fan of that idea though. If you're doing that, you have to be concerned that the part is being put in the second fixture correctly every time, and it's very time consuming to stop the machine and switch over parts. I'm very intrigued at the potential cost savings, competitive advantage and improved quality a 4 or 5 axis machine could provide us with.
3. Budget - It's not fair to ask for advice and then not reveal how much I have to spend. Without being specific, I'm looking for machines in the price range of a Lexus or an Infinity, rather then a Kia or a Lamborghini. My budget can be influenced largely, however, by how well I can rationalize the extra investment.
4. Our facility is already ISO certified and well equipped with Quality Control and instrumentation
5. There is an abundant supply of skilled operators in the area. Infact we already have one in our employment who I'm anxious to utilize. I do have confidence in him and his opinions, i'm just exercizing my due diligence here.

Thanks again.

[Geof]

.....Most parts fall into the size range of a coffee cup to an NFL football.....
.....
we'd probably need 5-10 tools in the carousel (although more would be nice if the cost substantiated it). A 3 axis machine would probably be enough to serve 50%-60% of the products, and the others could be managed by alternating orientations in the fixtures......

.....5. There is an abundant supply of skilled operators in the area. Infact we already have one in our employment who I'm anxious to utilize. I do have confidence in him and his opinions, i'm just exercizing my due diligence here.

Thanks again.

I have my own business making my own product and I guess I am vertically integrated because we do everything all the way up to our own distribution.

I have all Haas machines mostly because the first machine I bought, at a really good deal, was a Haas, and I am happy with their combination of initial cost, quality as in precision.accuracy, ease of operation and durability. I do have to qualify that rarely do we need to get to better than +0.0005", -0.0000" but this is not a problem when needed. When working in the +/-0.0005" range it is easy.

In your shoes with my current experience I would get a Haas VF2 with a 10,000 rpm spindle, 4th axis, Rigid tapping, Macros, Side Mount toolchanger, and maybe a few other things I cannot think of now. You are looking at around $68,000 to $70,000 for this. Unless you are hogging out big chucks of 4140 steel this machine will be able to handle the occasional steel job. This machine has an envelope of 30" x 16" x 20" (X,Y,Z); it is not beig enough for your biggest parts, I would still contract them out. You may hear about the Haas version with the extended Y axis and I suggest you do a search on CNCzone to find comments about it before considering purchasing this version.

Get the 4th axis wiring at initial purchase even if you do not get a rotary table at present. Your comment about improved precision coming from a single fixturing on a rotating fixture is right on. We are in near the end of a major revision of our procedures moving from two or three vise or stationary fixture operations to single rotating fixture operations. Not only do you get better precision you save on loading time because at least one loading operation is no longer needed. Also we are making mini-pallet systems where one fixture is running the part while another is being loaded; our initial time savings on some parts that are tooled up are in the 50% to 80% region.

Regarding the lathe: You do not explicitly say how big your biggest piece on the lathe would be but if it is something like the 24" dia. that you mention for the mill I think you may go a bit green around the gills at the price of a lathe that can handle that. Maybe continue to contract these out and just get a small lathe.

I have SL10, GT20 and TL1 and 2 with enclosures. If your parts are small enough, i.e. not longer than about 5" or larger than 6" dia. the GT20 is maybe the best values for money, otherwise move to the SL10. Price for a GT20 is around $40,000, SL10 $50,000 (I think, it is a couple of years since I bought either of these.) The SL can take 1-3/4" bar through the spindle and the GT20 can take 1-3/8" with the hydraulic chuck but if you adapt a 10" manual chuck you can put 2-3/4" through the spindle.

The TL machine I find handy for doing one-offs and making tooling. They definitely are not production machines but they can fill in a bit for short runs if you can grit your teeth and accept the long cycles times due to the slow rapids and toolchanger. Price for the TL2 with full enclosure and toolchanger is around $40,000. A definite advantage to the TL2 is that you can use either a 10" or 8" manual chuck so bar stock up to 2-3/4" can go through the spindle.

I think I have run-on enough.

[Celling It]

Geof,

A lot of great info there. It's taken a few days to wrap my head around all of it and do some of my own research. I must admit, there is an overwhelming amount of info on the net, and it is very difficult to find a concensus amongst programmers and operators.

Max size for the lathe would probably be a 14"-16" OD to cover 90% of our work.

Very soon, VERY CLOSE there are a few auctions going on with the following Available.

Turning Centres:
1-HAAS 2000 SL 20 T (what does the T mean?) CNC turning center with HAAS CNC control, 23" swing, 40" turning length, 8" chuck, 2" bar cap., speeds to 4000 RPM, 20 HP, 10 station tool turret

2-HAAS 1999 SL 20 T CNC turning center with HAAS CNC control, 23" swing, 40" turning length, 8" chuck, 2" bar cap., speeds to 4000 RPM, 20 HP, 10 station tool turret

3-OKUMA 1999 LB300-MW opposed twin spindle CNC turning center with
OKUMA OSP U100L CNC control, 20.87" swing, 29.92" between chucks, 14.57" main spindle turning dia., 10.24" sub spindle turning dia., main spindle speeds to 3800 RPM, sub spindle speeds to 4500 RPM, travels; X-10.24", Z-20.47", 10 station tool turret, (2) live tool stations, chip conveyor

4-HAAS 1998 HL2 CNC turning center HAAS CNC control, 20" swing, 20" turning length, 24" distance between centers, 2" bar cap., speeds to 3750 RPM, 15 HP, 10 position turret, 8 1 ⁄2" chuck, chip conveyor

5-2000 NAKAMURA-TOME SC-450 CNC Turning Center, Fanuc 21T CNC Control, 15” Chuck, 31.8” Swing, 40.7” Between Centers, 18.3” Max Turning Diameter, 28.14” Max Turning Length, 3.18” Bar Cap., 40 HP, 2500 RPM, 12 Position Turret, Programmable Tailstock

VMC/HMC:
1-2005 MATSUURA H Plus 630 Full 4 Axis High Speed Horizontal Machining Center, FANUC/MATSUURA G Tech 16i CNC Controls,
Travels; X-41.3”, Y-36.2”, Z-34.2”, (2) 24.8” x 24.8” Pallets, 45-
12,000 RPM Spindle Speed Range, 50 taper, 60 ATC, 40 HP Motor,
Rapid Traverse & Feed Rate (X,Y&Z) 1,968 ipm, Glass Scales, Max Work Envelope 41.33 x 39.37”, Coolant Through Spindle, Max Work Weight 2,640 lbs, Auto Pallet Changer, Pallet Clamping Force 113kN, ATC Time Tool to Tool 2.0 sec (if tool <22 lbs), Chip to Chip 5.6 sec, Max Tool Length
19.68”, Max Tool Weight 44 lbs, 610 L Coolant Tank Cap., High Speed FANUC Hardware & Software Package w/ High Precision Contour Control, 1 GB HS Data Server, 64 Bit RISC Processor

2-2005 MATSUURA H Plus 405 Full 4 Axis High Speed Horizontal Machining Center, FANUC/MATSUURA G-TECH 30i CNC Control, Travels; X-23.62”, Y-23.62”, Z-23.62”, (2) 19.7” x 19.7” Pallets, 12,000 RPM Max. Spindle Speed, 40 Taper, 51 ATC, 30 HP Motor, Glass Scales, Max Work Envelope 25.59” x 29.53”, Coolant Through Spindle, Rapid Traverse
1,968.5 ipm, ATC Time Tool to Tool 1.3 sec (if tool <13 lbs), Chip to Chip 3 sec, Pallet Changing Time 7.5 Sec, Load Cap., 882 lb, Max Tool Length 13.78”, Max Tool Weight 22.1 lbs, Chain Type Tool Magazine, 500 L Coolant Tank Cap., High Speed FANUC Hardware & Software Package w/ High Precision Contour Control, 1 GB HS Data Server, 64 Bit RISC Processor, Machine Weight 18,298 lbs

3-HAAS 2002, VF3-3B vertical machining center with 18”x 48” t-slot table, travels: X-40”, Y-20”, Z-25”, 7500 rpm, 20 hp 2 geared motor, rigid tapping, 20 ATC, CAT 40, HAAS CNC control, extended memory, chip auger, programmable coolant

4-1999 MATSUURA (Installed in 2001) Model MC-1000VG Vertical
Machining Center, YASNAC i80 CNC Control, Travels: X-40.1”, Y-21.7”, Z-20.1”, 43.3” x 19.3” Table, 12,000 RPM Max. Spindle Speed, 50 Taper, 31 ATC, 30 HP Motor, Max Work Weight 1,984 lbs, Rapid Traverse & Feed Rate (X,Y&Z) 1,181.1 ipm, ATC Time Tool to Tool 0.9 sec (if tool <11 lbs), Chip to Chip 3.3 sec, Max Tool Length 13.78”, Max Tool Weight 22 lbs,
Turbo Chip Conveyor, 400 L Coolant Tank Cap.

Every day I continue to research and find myself opening up endless new doors to new questions and problems. The Haas SL20's seem to be in exceptional shape and are relatively local. I wouldn't even need to hire a rigger, however the Okuma is also close and dual opposed spindles would be ideal for a lot of the pullies we manufacture (it is an older machine, however, and I have no idea what their reputation is so far).

Anyway, these are the immediate options I'm exploring. If anyone has any sincere warnings to avoid anything I've listed above or to aggressively explore them I would appreciate the info.

Thanks.