Bridging the Skills Gap: Multitasking Machines
06.17.2014
Do you enjoy the convenience of your smart phone? What a relief it is to carry just one device and still have a phone, pager, camera, voice recorder, and even a GPS right at your fingertips. You can get these kinds of “smart” efficiencies in your machine shop too. By combining 2 lathes, a machining center or two, and some automation, you have a multitasking machine tool. This creates efficiencies that allow you to maximize productivity and reduce your need to add employees.
Don’t Get Bogged Down in Setup Time
When you use multiple machines, you create a need for multiple setups as well. This adds costly man-hours to a job and may be unnecessary. As an example, using a multiple machine process, it might take several hours of setup time to produce less than 100 parts. By consolidating all of these operations onto one multitasking machine, such as a MULTUS, setup time could be reduced to just 15 minutes. With this time savings you can have your operators moving on to the next job instead of getting bogged down with setups.
Set Up Hot Jobs in Minutes
The reduced setup time for multitasking machines also has implications for hot jobs that come in unexpectedly. If you have a lineup of 4-5 machines, it could take as much as a day or two to change over your setups. With a multitasking machine, your tools are in the machine, ready to go, and all you have to do is change the program. You can’t prevent hot jobs from coming in, but you can minimize the drain on your staffing resources.
Skilled Workers Moving WIP Around?
Are you looking at stacks of parts between 4-5 machines, just for one production run? Of course we all know Work In Process (WIP) really should be called Money Sitting On Floor (MSOF), which is bad enough already. But think for a minute about how labor intensive this can be. Why have your skilled workers shifting WIP around when you don’t have to? With a multitasking machine WIP is eliminated and you can put your skilled workers on Money Making Activities (MMA).
Reduce Chances for Operator Error
With a multitasking machine, you simply put raw material in and take a finished part out. There is no need to move parts from machine to machine and continually clock parts to make sure they’re properly aligned following transfers. With one machine you take the chances for operator error out of the process, and mishaps like scrapping a part due to misalignment are eliminated.
Fixturing Can Breed Like Bunnies
When you use a lineup of machines to produce a part, you need to invest heavily in dedicated fixturing for all the various operations. This adds up to big dollar investments. With a multitasking machine, all you need for fixturing is two sets of chuck jaws. Much of the fixturing that was previously required is now eliminated because the functionality is built into one machine.
For more information on multitasking machines check out our blog post “Multitasking Machines – Smarter Than You Think?” And feel free to contact us, or your Okuma distributor, to learn how to make better use of your existing workforce.