This CNC Control Works With Me, Not Against Me

Before I joined Okuma I had quite a bit of experience (28 years) in the machine tool industry, having worked on both the builder and the distributor side of things. Over time I’ve worked with lots of CNC controls on the market. With most of them I’ve had a similar experience - that is, you often have to fight the control to get things running the way you want on the machine. But that’s not what I experienced the first time I tried the Okuma control.

Easy to Learn

As I started to learn Okuma’s OSP control, I quickly saw that everything on it just made good sense. It was very easy to pick up. All the procedures and everything I wanted to do on the control were really easy and very straightforward. You don’t have to do a lot of interpretation just to perform a simple operation. On other controls, just to do a simple task you have to jump through a bunch of hoops and it makes it a lot harder than it needs to be. Not only harder, but it takes a lot longer to get the machine running, which is the whole goal when you buy a machine tool. Customers want to get their machines going as soon as possible to get them making money. But all that gets delayed when you have to fight a control at the onset.

One Source

Once the machine is running, then it’s the quality of the machine that’s excellent too. My experience is that Okumas make better parts faster. The construction from the ground up is very strong and stable. And I’ve found that it really does make sense that both the iron and the controller are made by the same builder. Pretty much everything is made by Okuma, the drives, the controller, everything. Some of the other builders have controls that are made by a third-party. So they don’t have any say over how it’s made. If something is different on the controller, on the programming side, they can’t change any of that, and it may or may not fit with the machine tool.

Belief in Our Product

In the two years I’ve been with Okuma so far, I can say I’m happy here. I’ve noticed that a lot of the other employees seem to feel the same, because people tend to stay. That too is different from what I’ve seen at other builders. I think it’s because folks believe in the machines, for sure. They also believe in the process of everything coming from one source, which is a lot easier for everyone to deal with. Plus we all take care of each other.

The Best Tool Always Feels Like an Extension of Yourself

Before I started at Okuma I read a lot of the information on the website. One thing that really stood out was a story about a customer named Martec Precision. They’re a very successful shop and an Okuma user, and I really like this quote from the owner, Dawson Marks. “One of the things I’ve learned is that quality is in the details. The Okumas have the strength and reliability, no doubt. Where they really shine is they intuitively work with me. The best tool always feels like an extension of yourself.” In my experience I’ve found these words to be very true.

Jeff Hampton is Applications Engineer, Okuma America Corporation.

MORE: See more quotes and stories about Okuma users in our Case Studies.