Put On Your “Business Hat”

When I’m on the road visiting manufacturers, I meet lots of the folks who are great machinists. Some are downright brilliant. But through the years I’ve seen way too many of these shops go out of business for one simple reason. They spend too much time “working in” the business, and not enough time “working on” the business. When I ask them why they’re doing something a particular way they often reply “because we’ve always done it this way.” That will kill you! So I have a saying I use – “put your business hat on.” Here I want you to switch your mental gears and think about where you can go to grow your business, rather than thinking about what’s going out the door right now.

Doing Things the Same Old Way

Why would “doing things the same way” kill a business? Let’s take a shop that produces small parts as an example. You bid on a job and there are 25 other shops competing for the contract. Profit margins are tight, but you want this nice high-volume job so you can keep your machines making chips. Then, you win the business! The agreement is for $5 per part, but you know you’ll be pressured to get it down to $3 eventually. The job comes in and you put it on your vintage 1960’s CNC machine. The only operator you have who can run this machine is about 70 years old, but he’s still ticking (fingers crossed). He knows just where to kick this machine twice on a Monday to get it to hold tolerances. You’re doing things the same old way, but phew, you’re surviving!

Small Parts “Out the Door”

While you’re immersed in getting these small parts out the door, things are starting to look awfully good to your customer for sending this job overseas. Manufacturers in China can cut you off at the knees with price. The reason they can do this is NOT what everyone thinks – it’s not cheap labor. It’s because they don’t have enough skilled labor available, so they’ve been forced to invest in the latest CNC machine technology. And advanced technology can do so many things to create efficiencies and enhance productivity, your vintage machine simply can’t compete with their price, and your job goes overseas.

Put On Your Business Hat

All is not lost! But you have to put your business hat back on. Think about markets that are less competitive, and much less likely to go overseas. Large parts are a great example of this kind of market, because the cost of logistics and shipping become prohibitive. Plus, not as many shops here in North America are equipped to do large parts work. Here at Okuma we’ve seen many examples of shops that have made a successful transition into large parts, and Alliance Innovative is one of them. (Read the Alliance story,“Big CNC Machines Bring Big Rewards.”) They invested in an Okuma VTM-200YB 5-axis vertical lathe and an MCR-A5CII double column machining center, and today they say “jobs seem to sell themselves.”

Make the Leap

When it comes to CNC machines for large parts, Okuma has several. At IMTS 2014 we debuted the MA-12500H horizontal machining center (that’s the one in the picture above), which is a big, heavy, monster machine with a very high-torque spindle (19,015 meters torque, which is about 1,000 more meters than you’d usually see.) At Okuma’s “Make the Leap” Technology Showcase, December 9-10 here in Charlotte, we’ll be running this machine with a demo showing a Frac-Pump – Fluid End Component. So the Oil/Energy folks will be interested in this component for the fracking industry. We’re also going to be machining a titanium part that would be used in Aerospace. Even if you’re not involved in any of these industries right now, put on your business hat and come join us at this event. We’ll help you explore how technology upgrades can help you “leap” ahead of your competition and improve your bottom line.

Jim Endsley is Machining Center Product Specialist, Okuma America Corporation.

For more information and to register for the “Make the Leap” Technology Showcase visit the event page and get all the details.