The efficiency of service/replacement parts department operations plays a critical role in today’s manufacturing world. This holds true because the more time it takes to get a service part, the longer a particular piece of equipment or system sits idle, crippling a company’s overall production output.
Multi-Tasking machine tools have revolutionized manufacturing and continue to play a critical role in today’s progressive manufacturing facilities. In addition to enabling incredible gains in productivity, Multi-Tasking technology has catapulted manufacturers, especially smaller ones, to levels where they can easily and cost-effectively machine the world’s most complex parts.
The spindle is the heart of a machine tool, and when it gives out, repair and rebuild can resuscitate it for continued service and productivity. But these are delicate operations, and they must be performed according to specific process procedures using the best equipment and replacement parts. Optimal results are achieved when the professionals who originally produced the spindle are the ones to repair and rebuild it.
When you're selecting machine tools for your shop, repeatable accuracy tops the list of must-have features. If you've always thought of scales as the easiest way to achieve that accuracy, however, you're overlooking some critical aspects of precision.
Five-axis machining can boost output and increase precision for virtually any shop. The old-school mindset that steers away from 5-axis as too complex to use or program will miss the boat on easy benefits, including dramatically reduced setup times and greater repeatability.
With the birth of modern Multi-Tasking, Mazak helped launch a new era of manufacturing, one that would eventually result in the high-mix/low-volume approaches that have become prevalent in the 21st century.
Many shop owners and decision-makers prefer to simplify the machine tool acquisition process by always prioritizing value – but doing so often comes at the cost of performance. For the highest return on investment (ROI), it is important to find a balance between performance and value. Minimizing lifetime equipment costs makes it significantly easier to keep up with technological advancement and grow business.
The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) revolution and digital connectivity continue to positively impact manufacturers across nearly all industries. Unfortunately, one group tends to remain hesitant - job shops and other small-scale manufacturers. For these and other uncertain manufacturers, the advantages of a fully integrated digital workspace can seem small in comparison to the difficulty they expect to encounter when onboarding these somewhat sophisticated networks, especially given the relatively modest number of machines in use.
Today’s digital solutions improve product quality, reduce manufacturing errors and even unlock entirely new process modalities and production paradigms. And as the technologies grow more mature – including the rapid introduction of virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR) – it has become clear these changes do not just constitute an optimization of existing practices.
As manufacturers increasingly seek to integrate cutting-edge digital technology into their existing production operations, the lines between the real and the virtual have blurred together. Manufacturers now have the ability to blend virtualized elements into real-world environments, offering the potential for improved training regimens, expedited or remote service and support, and the standardization and optimization of machining processes.
he increasing digitization of manufacturing brings new risks, and with cybercrime on the rise, manufacturing information technology (IT) professionals have a vested interest in preventing criminals from accessing networks, particularly as increasingly large amounts of data are moving across factory floors and between machines.
For years, the growing gap between the number of manufacturing job opportunities and qualified candidates has alarmed manufacturers and policymakers alike. According to the 2018 Deloitte and The Manufacturing Institute Skills Gap and Future of Work Study, by 2028, this gap will have grown to 2.4 million positions, a massive number of unfilled jobs the authors estimate will cost the U.S. economy $2.5 trillion.
