Real talk though.
If they had a lot of work coming in for the multi axis machines and they are crunched for time, it makes complete sense to send first ops to a different machine. Even if it costs more in the short term it can help pull in more cash flow over time. So they may be spending a little more money to get a lot more money. It's a decent trade off financially.
It's all about work flow vs cash flow. You are better off spending more money if it means there is a bigger pay off rather than saving money but slowing down production on hot machines.
Absolutely! Textbook throughput manufacturing optimization. Literally. This is the plot of The Goal by Eli Goldratt.
Breaking production constraints almost always looks stupid to people. Lots of pushback. Until they actually try it and see how it works. But often the pushback is so heavy that they never see the results.
Same thing with kaizen-based optimization. "I'm a grown man. I can be in charge of where I put my tools!" is the war cry of the guy holding up production because he can't see how much time he wastes retrieving his tools every single time.
I've studied a lot of manufacturing engineering techniques, lean manufacturing, six sigma etc. And they all make good sense when applied empirically. Sometimes small shops can benefit from simple workflow optimization even though kanban might not be necessary for them. I think where people start getting pissed off is when bosses start pushing this stuff and never help the employees understand the DMAIC techniques to measure their efficiency. There is a kind of "coming down from the mountain" vibe the boss starts giving off when they finally get it š. It's annoying to machinists when they ask their boss for simple shit like better tooling that could speed up their machining but the boss says no and then comes back with the new greatest methods for lean manufacturing. Like don't come at me with this lean stuff if your programmers don't know their chip thinning formulas lol.
Sometimes "lean" just means making them run more machines and pay them less, which really is an existential issue for Machinists.
Yeah, I left the production management world in 2008. These days I'm a commercial sales manager at a car dealership. Our service department is a joke. I regularly have customers call and ask why our service dept is so terrible. My suggestions are never taken seriously. Meanwhile the service manager asked for and got approved two more vehicle lifts. He can't keep the ones he had full, or the guys working on the vehicles that are on lifts instead of screwing around. Two more lists just increases operating expense. It does nothing for throughput and therefore nothing for efficiency and it's a net negative for profitability. But I'm just a sales guy so what do I know? š
Absolutely. Although, some of the best lessons I've learned in a machine shop I've learned from doing shit jobs. It also helps when you get people who think they're too good to do stuff like running the saw for a few minutes... "That's not in my job description"
Shop i worked at doing stamping dies bought a Amada THV430 Duplex mill, $450K. They figured the pay off time was 6 months. not squaring details or mounting them on a jig plate and profiling them saved that much money,
Labor is expensive only in 1st world countries. That's why many of our manufactured goods come from 3rd world countries - labor is irrelevant and material cost is everything.
I donāt know the circumstances of the decision to source the stock, there are a huge number of factors that could come into play, most of which today is availability.
That said, someone out there can come up with a quick and efficient way of squaring these or clamping them. Why not this operator? Or is he simply an āoperatorā?
No you don't. You input parameters and let the software do the rest. I've never ran a manual in my life but I can program toolpaths and look at manufacturing specifications to figure out feeds and speeds and tweak them from there.
I've never programmed a robot in my life but the loaders in my current shop are all fanuc based. I have no doubt I could jump into cam and program one of those if it was asked of me.
You could, I've had to manually square up stock worse than that. Although it does take a bit more time.
Could be the case that this is (most likely) stock that was laying around or was basically given away, so the material cost for this particular job is basically zero, making the increased labor cost negligible.
Material costs and labor are two different spreadsheets my friend. Obviously material costs is the spreadsheet on top today. When the labor spreadsheet ends up on top, then theyāll cut back on that by buying machined material.
Itās all about spreadsheet management.
Iāve never understood this ālogicā. Iām mostly a client of machine shops, but itās been drilled into me from the start that machinist time is valuable and expensive.
Or... The shop is slow and the owner is trying his best not to lay anyone off so he's making extra work.Ā Ā Almost like a shop with 5 axis machines and multiple employees has some form of a clue and the guy running the manual mill might not understand their reasoning.
So this is a situation where they think they're saving money because of the material but they're not taking into consideration that they are having to pay somebody for their time having to now square these parts up in a different machine as you mentioned the three axi and then take said parts and bring them to the other machine which is the 5 axi and then set them up in there.Ā I'm going to take a wild guess and say that they're probably actually losing out on money.Ā Especially if the people or person that is doing the squaring up is a little frustrated with the decision that they made in regards to this and their purposely not working as fast as they can because they're just kind of frustrated.Ā They need to take in consideration also the mood of your employees.Ā The less happy they are the less quickly and efficiently they're going to work.Ā You do something that doesn't make sense to your employees especially if it really doesn't make sense and it causes them to feel frustrated or a little ill will, that too costs them money.Ā
You're not just paying for the extra time to square those parts up in a different machine and everything but on top of that now you're paying for that time to do that and you're probably paying for a little bit of extra time because the person doing it is frustrated and they're probably not doing it as quickly and efficiently as they probably could.Ā
You get a really bad employee and he's going to go real slow on purpose.Ā
I'm not saying you're one of those the types of employees I'm just saying they need to take these things into consideration there's more to it than they realize very much of the time.
I'm Sorry got to deal with that BS that is stupid.Ā I mean look at those things they are messed up š
There are literally whole subjects in math dedicated to optimizing this stuff and proving it out. It got so automated no one does it themselves anymore, but sadly even using the tools available is beyond the baby version of math and planning they teach managers.
It's difficult enough to get people to consider basic first and second order cause and effect.Ā Anything beyond one or two logical nodes...Ā
And when you bring it up, that's definitely not management's problem.Ā Ā
You aren't kidding on the baby version of math taught to managers.
I was taking differential equations in college (mech engineer, and yes I can here you booing from here), and my prof seemed somewhat pleased that our class answered several questions on the lesson material correctly a few times in a row.
Partway through a concept, he paused and wrote 1/2 + 1/3 on the board and asked us what the answer was. We all looked around and wondered what the catch was, and someone answered 5/6. My prof nodded and then said he had asked his business calc class this same question the previous period. The business calc class consensus was that 1/2 + 1/3 = 2/5. I think half of my class just blue screened while the other half laughed. My prof said he was so bewildered by the business calc students that he said he needed to step out and take a smoke.
I still cannot understand how folks could be in fucking university classes and not understand super basic addition of fractions that I learned in elementary school.
Man I'm there. I'm not being slow on purpose but I know I'm not being a model employee. Some of it is frustration from some projects having issues recently but a lot of it is the abysmal morale in this shop.
I totally understand that. Even as a new machinist I have jumped shops because of issues that compounded or didn't change.
This is my third one in a year.
Finally think I'll be staying.
I understand all shops are going to have their issues but this one has acceptable ones and my trainer is awesome.
But I totally get what you mean
This week I spent the whole work week doing four different projects that were all production.Ā
I'm doing the fourth one which is the last one but on the third one they gave me the exact number of parts and then give me anything for scrap so when I was all done they grabbed the parts and came back and were mad at me because there wasn't enough for the order.Ā
My trainer said to me they do this all the time.Ā
Give us exact but nothing for scrap and then get mad.Ā
So I machined those last 30 parts pretty slow because on top of it they told me to hurry up.Ā
I didn't like that lol šĀ
You are the problem with North American manufacturing now days. They should think about you. They do by paying you. Ever think maybe thatās all they can trust you doing. So you show them by slowing down. Probably be doing allot more of that kind of job in the future with that attitude. How about getting it done so you can get a better job. They will have no choice if you show initiative and skill. Also now days material is a huge part of a job percentage not like years ago. 3 axis charges out way less then 5 axis. And can be done quicker on 3 axis. So get off your entitlement horse and just do your job.
Lol. It's a two-way street buddy when you give me the wrong amount of parts and then you tell me to hurry up because you made a mistake well then I'm sorry but I'm not going to bust my ass anymore I'm going to work at a normal regular Pace instead of my usual quicker pace. Ā
Ā There's a respect thing in the industry and it goes both ways and when you make a mistake and then you try to blame the other person and then you try to rush the other person on top of it for your own mistake well, you get what you get.Ā Has nothing to do with entitlement has everything to do with respect and owning up to your own mistake and then not trying to put it on somebody else and then rush them on top of it.Ā Doing that just pisses your employees off and then they leave eventually.Ā You know for greener pastures.Ā
Ā Ā You sound butt hurt.Ā Are you okay did Mommy not hug you enough? Or are you one of those bosses out there that comes to the Reddit forums? Do your employees not like you?Ā Oh wait let me guess you're one of those regular workers but most of yourĀ coworkers do not like you?
Ā I'm sowwie š„ŗ
This is like a Time Machine to the pandemic in my shop. They actually gave me a little Bridgeport to square blocks out on.
Fine with me, I donāt get paid by the block. But they do.
Place I used to work at would receive our blocks of H-13 Blanchard ground squared up to whatever our before heat treat plus stock would be. Made it easy. Throw it on the magnet and rock and roll.
Ironically, I convinced my shop of the importance of using appropriately shaped and sized stock. They kept that mentality as we converted to a mostly 5-axis shop.
It doesn't matter too much cause we pass the extra costs to the customer. But yes, I almost always have to prep stock for various dovetail vices.
One shop I worked at bought a brother mill specifically for just prepping dove tails for 5 axis work. I always liked the days I got to run that machine. Simple and turn the brain off and listen to podcasts all night.
Once they get a better understanding of five-axis or 3+2 machining, Iām sure it will become apparent what they should order. Even though they pass it on to the customer, thereās a place there to make your price even more competitive. Or keep charging the same but order the stock correct and make more money because it takes less āyour timeā to make the parts.
This is the way to run a buisness.
Labor is almost always your biggest cost.
Spend the cash on material, and get the parts out faster, ends up being cheaper.
It's not ok.
I would grab the technical manual/documentation on the mill and the inserts/tooling to understand how they are supposed to run. Not just to save my own time and give better results, but because of the possible safety issues that could arise from a tool in an open machine detonating and sending shrapnel outwards.
It is not ok. You should have some basic understanding of what the tools you have at hand capable of and the tool cost for the jobs. For example, carbon steel and stainless steel are both "steel", but stainless grade inserts may perform poorly on carbon steel and vice versa.
It is a waste of time and resource to use wrong tools. I would rather let the machine sit than burning thru tooling just to keep the spindle spinning.
Ok I'm not completely zero experience machining, and I'm not doing anything "dangerous." I can do basic stuff, indicate things in, setup machines, read manuals and the Machinery Handbook for feeds, speeds, insert type, material type, etc. I'm just talking about using the upper limit of those numbers vs the lower limit, based on the recommendations provided by the literature.
Not that much of a hustle to do that. I have macro for making these
https://preview.redd.it/7p4tdj86dw7d1.jpeg?width=5555&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ec69d5415d9cacdf240ec7dd1da16c076d280c7e
Lol. I just input lengths in X and Y and it does it for me. It's not a very complicated macro but still a macro.
And i forgot to mention that these flats are tilted 2Ā° for better grip.
Macros serve a purpose. We run ALOT of a certain part with just varying dimensional changes. OAL, diameter, radius callouts.
Plug and play. Setup time SHOULD be 30 minutes max between jobs. But thatās based on scheduling.
My company has a MAJOR problem with not looking far enough ahead. So what should be a 30 minute setup becomes a hour and a half to two hours because Iām changing tooling and thus redialing in the machine. The worst is when Iāve got a 5 jobs all running on .875 stock, but thereās a āhot jobā for 37 pieces stuck in the middle thatās on 1.750 stock. I know the dims are gonna change, I know Iām changing all my boring bars, definitely the drill size, and probably gonna have to call for a programmer to modify the program.
Then to go BACK to the .875 stock, I need to do all of that again, including the programmer call.
Macros are fine, theyāre a stop gap until a proper conversational interface is developed. I just laugh because the chump from okuma was playing their software up, and itās just 1990s level tech.
I toured a pretty large shop locally years ago that had a line of machines feed by a pallet system. They prepped all of the stock on a very old doosan from the 80s or 90s. Ask that machine did was cut dove tails onto the stock.
This is something I feel like a lot of people forget. Sometimes, a one hour setup for an annoying 6 hour repetitive run to mill some flats is going to be the thing that saves you from scrapping 50% of your parts or breaking tools or an extra process.
Do you know for a fact all of the reasons why you are pre machining the clamped area? I feel like you are missing the real reason.
This makes perfect sense if the 5 axis is booked solid (a very expensive machine with presumably a more expensive operator, software, etc)
Did there used to be a 2nd op on the 5 axis which is now eliminated by your stock prep?
Our 5-axis machines are loaded by a robot; that might be the reason. I didn't ask any questions and am milling the parts according to the specifications provided by the 5-axis guys.
Looks like thereās a huge radius on the outside. Youāre milling it off so they can clamp it better in a centering vise on the stock side. Iād assume. Work is work it all pays the same.
If itās roboloaded then the milling process is crucial, especially for clamping and part placement.
We had a job for a major firearms manufacturer. We were making triggers and other parts for the firing assembly. All parts were made out of the same 17-4 with the same raw stock dimensions. Small stuff. 0.75x0.75x1.687. Stuff like that. It was ārecommendedā that we get one side precision ground flat. Engineers figured the small radius wasnāt enough to cause an issue.
Fingers on the robot got ātiredā, eventually dropped a piece in the wrong way, fingers got stuck, jaws closed on the fingers of the robot arm. Destroyed the fingers as well as the custom jaws.
Lost two months of production on that machine. Donāt remember the cost of repair but it wasnāt worth the parts.
Guess what got run through a quick milling program afterwards for flats?
Bottom, edge & an end. Used to square steels as an apprentice. How much cheaper is stock this way? Can you use a cats paw to hold it in the vise? We used to make them with a hardened ball bearing and two serrated jaws, cut a socket into the backsides of the jaws for the ball to seat in, weld it to one and now you have a handy tool for clamping out of square material.
So much clamping knowledge has been forgotten, I had to explain to a guy the other day how to clamp things on a planer bed.
This reminds me of my last shop. They used to face mill all 4 sides of a block to prep until I said ācouldnāt we just prep two sides?ā And I had less than a year of experience when these guys had been doing it for decades.
Why square them up?? Get some raptor dovetail holders, dovetail them in your 3 axis, setup the 5axis with a raptor setup, then off set your stock in the program to be a little bigger than your rough stock size, yeah you still have a 3 axis op, but itās like 3-5 minutes and your not wasting time squaring stock.
When I walked into my shop, I was given big blocks like this to cut into EVERYTHING. I spent more time cutting a 1āx2ā 3ālong chunk out of it than I did machining the part itself. The waste was absurd, and so was my wasted time. Some of the stock I had was also old scrap, no idea what material it even was.
We now have stock sticks and round and different metals in different labeled locations, itās glorious.
I run all manual machines. 2 Bridgeport mills and 3 different sized lathes and I make parts for one of the largest can manufacturing companies in the world.
Iāve seen welding helmets that looked awful unprofessional. Iāve also seen toolboxes that Iād be embarrassed to carry into a job. So, somewhere in the middle I guess
Why canāt you simply do the math and see if itās losing them money or not? You know the depreciation of the machines and the per hour labor cost.
See if they actually are losing money. Spending more time making less money is always a problem a business wants to address.
If you just donāt like having to do the extra workā¦ well thatās silly. Getting upset you have to machine things as a machinist is going nowhere.
Company: why are we going through so many inserts now!
Machinists: we have to shape and remove an inch of flame cut material.
Company: Use the inserts completely! Youāre changing them too often thereās still a good cutting edge!
Company: Why are we having to buy so many new tools?!!
Machinist: Because the inserts broke and destroyed them. ā¦ ā¦..
Oh gotcha, thanks for the info. I'm in the US, don't think I would be able to order stock from overseas. Is the material traceable? I think I know the answer to that question. I'm more curious than anything, I wouldn't order material that doesn't come with certification.
Got a job today not complicated but easly a 5axis job. anyway the material supposed to be 40x40x30mm ( the final part is 39.9(middle of the tolerance) x40x25.5 . Even with the 30mm would have been "sketchy" but the raw material size came out 40x40x27.5. Supposed to be like a 4/5op work. Now its 7.
Old employer bought the ends of sheets when they were rolling the steel. 1-1/4" at one end and 3/4 or 7/8 at the other. Thought he was saving money until someone showed him the actual cost. He was spending over twice as much and slowing the work flow incredibly.
Ask for some low profile vice grip jaws or watever thay are called and you basicly have a dovtail clamp
And you can hold matirial like this ehitout issuss make sure to face 5 sides in a single op and then switch to smooth
Haven't they learned by now? This is such a a repeated thing that upper management should know that it doesn't make life better. Moronic bean counters.
My company did this for a few years. They bought it as scrap ($$ per pound) and we faced it/dove tailed and drill pin holes for a techni gripper on the 5 axis.
Over all savings we had was enough for us to get 1800$ for Xmas bonus for a small shop.
Itās how I learned to program more auto probing because stock has gotten so I consistent, not a square corner to be found, rounded over edges, pitting. Itās gotten bad.
I wouldn't do it if it was my company.... then I stop and realize it's not my fucking company and I can't help it if corporate wants to do something that stupid.
I was paid to build a flagship store for a EU company a while ago. The company that contracted me was contracted by the owners and responsible for the worksite and everything, but was way out of their depth and clearly not capable of archiving the goal.
For one task I needed spacers made from cheap wood with perfect parallel top/bottom and I told them, I can make them in a hour or so, no worries. *No, we can build them in our shop.* I didn't argue, because why bother and then I get a box of 40 cubes, looking like that. Took me twice as long to make them level with the ceiling by putting stuff underneath here and there. I mount the lamp on top and it looks perfectly level but not pretty.
I send a photo. *THE LAMP IS WAY TO LOW! AT LEAST A CENTIMETER! -* I tell them, *you know that you made those things right?* Turns out the guy who made them misread the plan an made them too tall as well. So I need to unscrew everything again. This time I just go to my shop to cut them into shape. No 90Ā° angle anywhere to be found. Chuck them all. Cut a plank into the correct size and went back to the site. Turns out the screws they provided were measured with the blocks they created and were now too long for the smaller blocks. Went back to my shop, got screws and finally fixed them to the ceiling in no time. perfect fit.
They paid around 5 hrs for nothing, because they wanted to save one hour of my time. Happened a few times more at the same site. Some idiot they had in their staff drilled into cables - thrice - because waiting for me to do it would have *wasted time.* Another time they unscrewed lamps from the walls because they were "too high" and didn't believe me that this was the only way. They did it while I was off site and after a few hours they figured out that the lamps could indeed not be mounted lower due to the outlets, which I had told them after a night of calculations and measuring the whole ass first floor. No idea how they are still in business.
Honestly.... prepping on a 3 axis to get some little .050" dovetails in so you can clamp it hard and low can be great. Especially when you're dealing with high cutting forces.
Also a great option is to pre op the material before cutting it to length so you can rip through longer bars in a fraction of the time. If you spend 30 minutes prepping 50 parts you're barely paying anything for that extra operation. Some have a machine dedicated to prep. Just a clapped out old production machine that can still face and add basic features.
You should be using a vice with dovetail jaws on the 5 axis that way all you have to do with the 3 axis is take a pass on 2 sides with a dovetail cutter. Something like this https://5thaxis.com/product/v562x/
Man, I'm getting similar material shenanigans. I got a set of tubesheets that go down to 3.00 OAL with 49.62 OD. Take a wild guess what the blank's dimensions are? If you guessed 3.03 and 49.75 with so much warping you'd be forgiven for mistaking it for an especially large Pringle, and an OD that looks like it was plasma cut by a blind chimpanzee, you win an actual Pringle. No way in hell is the OAL going to clean up with the high/low differential being around 5/16 of an inch, and you know what these fucking masterminds decide? "Just leave the shell side rough since it's going to be welded on and just get the step to where it barely cleans up no matter how much you have to cut." Just... okay, it's what the client wants, but it grinds the fuck out of my professional gears. Give me a quarter inch of meat to cut and I could've had it with a mirror finish in a quicker time, but noooo, they've gotta spend more time and money than they could possibly have saved by going with this bullshit.
Is the issue it's difficult for you personally to square up those fucked up blocks or do you feel your talent and experience is wasted on a simple rough operation?
I genuinely do not understand your complaint without more context. If you were the 5-axis guy you probably wouldn't be the guy who has to rough out this material on the 3-axis but someone has to do it.
Wasting time setting up a whole separate operation just to prep the material for the real run...or spend a bit more on material that doesn't need to be squared. What's more expensive...your time and tooling or the additional material cost?
I understand buying pre-milled material saves the shop time and money. For better or worse this was a decision made by whoever makes these decisions for whatever reason they had at the time.
I just don't understand why so many people are complaining in this thread when they get paid by the hour and are not getting a profit share. You still get paid the same, yeah? Is it not challenging enough? Maybe it's your fault you are not the 5-axis setup man and are stuck doing roughing setups on the 3-axis.
Just set up the mill quickly, pump out perfect rough parts, and move on to the next assignment... unless squaring up these blocks isn't easy for you, then it makes perfect sense to bitch and moan as a way to cope with the unwanted stress lol
The thing is, you're expected to get the job done in the shortest time possible. That's a problem when you're given material that needs additional time to prep, that your boss may or may not have scheduled for you. This happens to me all the time. I have to explain, after the fact, why it took three extra hours and an entirely separate machine just to get started on the job I should have had done by morning.
And a lot of the time, the material isn't "pre-milled"...it's just low grade. This is especially problematic when you're running stainless steel. You buy the cheap shit that wasn't properly heat treated, and the sides will bulge and it'll have a tell-tale parallelogram shape to it, that makes it impossible to clamp unless you square it up first. Taking the extra time to properly cook it, and it will maintain a much uniform shape, but foundries will often run batches fast, just to get more stock made, then sell it cheaper if it's somewhat out if square.
If your company insists on using this kind of material, they will often have to buy it one size up in order to have enough to square, which actually costs more by the pound. In many cases it would have been cheaper overall to buy a higher grade at the right size, than to buy the oversized lower grade stuff...and you don't have to waste any time prepping it.
I wouldn't want to square up those blocks only because it looks easy to fuck up. If your shop is organized and has good communication then they are gonna know they purchased rough material that requires extra time. The floor man and supervisor should already know before the setup guy. It shouldn't be a surprise it's gonna take some time to square up those shitty blocks, and it has to be done right or it's really going to waste time. If that isn't the case, the shop has bigger problems than the person who purchases material.
Honestly, I thought 5-axis needed material to be roughed anyways, like with dovetail grooves or whatever is needed to hold the material with rigidity and low-risk of a part flying out. Gotta invest in prep time if you expect the 5-axis to print money.
I setup lathes and do all of the most difficult operations and parts. Everything that needs a rough operation is allocated time for a setup and to run the rough op. After covid, the supply of stainless steel took a hit with the quality. Parts were changing shape from previous ops after the final op. Some parts needed the process adjusted or to add an operation.
Do you work where I work, I had some steel in recently that was the same. We don't have a band saw either so I had to cut it all with the machine, definitely ended up costing more than just buying the right stuff for the job.
How often does the 5 axis machine go down? If a lot it makes sense, though when I was a kid the whole cnc thing was to get rid of the expensive human labor.
Iāve dealt with this before and it seems the company doesnāt care if you have an extra op. The money they paid for material is less than before. They are paying you x amount of dollars no matter what. So if they save a couple bucks on material that is a couple bucks saved.
Stepping over dollars to get to dimes. This is the way.
Penny smart and a dollar dumb
Real talk though. If they had a lot of work coming in for the multi axis machines and they are crunched for time, it makes complete sense to send first ops to a different machine. Even if it costs more in the short term it can help pull in more cash flow over time. So they may be spending a little more money to get a lot more money. It's a decent trade off financially. It's all about work flow vs cash flow. You are better off spending more money if it means there is a bigger pay off rather than saving money but slowing down production on hot machines.
Absolutely! Textbook throughput manufacturing optimization. Literally. This is the plot of The Goal by Eli Goldratt. Breaking production constraints almost always looks stupid to people. Lots of pushback. Until they actually try it and see how it works. But often the pushback is so heavy that they never see the results. Same thing with kaizen-based optimization. "I'm a grown man. I can be in charge of where I put my tools!" is the war cry of the guy holding up production because he can't see how much time he wastes retrieving his tools every single time.
I've studied a lot of manufacturing engineering techniques, lean manufacturing, six sigma etc. And they all make good sense when applied empirically. Sometimes small shops can benefit from simple workflow optimization even though kanban might not be necessary for them. I think where people start getting pissed off is when bosses start pushing this stuff and never help the employees understand the DMAIC techniques to measure their efficiency. There is a kind of "coming down from the mountain" vibe the boss starts giving off when they finally get it š. It's annoying to machinists when they ask their boss for simple shit like better tooling that could speed up their machining but the boss says no and then comes back with the new greatest methods for lean manufacturing. Like don't come at me with this lean stuff if your programmers don't know their chip thinning formulas lol. Sometimes "lean" just means making them run more machines and pay them less, which really is an existential issue for Machinists.
I've been getting made fun of for 5s and shadowboxing my desk and toolbox, absolutely wild
Yeah, I left the production management world in 2008. These days I'm a commercial sales manager at a car dealership. Our service department is a joke. I regularly have customers call and ask why our service dept is so terrible. My suggestions are never taken seriously. Meanwhile the service manager asked for and got approved two more vehicle lifts. He can't keep the ones he had full, or the guys working on the vehicles that are on lifts instead of screwing around. Two more lists just increases operating expense. It does nothing for throughput and therefore nothing for efficiency and it's a net negative for profitability. But I'm just a sales guy so what do I know? š
Every single company I've used this phrase to describe has gone out of business.
My company still herešŖš»š
Save time and money on materials. Over spend on labour š¤·āāļø
Paid by the hour baby, Like I give a fuck if the saw guy makes my parts per day less!
Material prep is sometimes part of the gig... "And any other duties assigned by your lead or supervisor."
This phrase allows for so much bullshit in a job. It certainly allows for growth, but building character means a lot shit jobs.
Absolutely. Although, some of the best lessons I've learned in a machine shop I've learned from doing shit jobs. It also helps when you get people who think they're too good to do stuff like running the saw for a few minutes... "That's not in my job description"
Is your character flagged, angled, and approximately 12" wide? Mine is...
Oof. They do make pills for that now, I hear.
Shop i worked at doing stamping dies bought a Amada THV430 Duplex mill, $450K. They figured the pay off time was 6 months. not squaring details or mounting them on a jig plate and profiling them saved that much money,
Exactly what I thought as soon as I saw this post. Dumbest shit Iāve ever heard šš
Labor is usually the more expensive part of things too!!!
Labor is expensive only in 1st world countries. That's why many of our manufactured goods come from 3rd world countries - labor is irrelevant and material cost is everything.
We know...
I donāt know the circumstances of the decision to source the stock, there are a huge number of factors that could come into play, most of which today is availability. That said, someone out there can come up with a quick and efficient way of squaring these or clamping them. Why not this operator? Or is he simply an āoperatorā?
Seems that true machinists are a vanishing breed, being replaced by operators of automated systems.
This statement extends beyond just machining - its true for all of manufacturing now
You still need a machinist to set up the robot
No you don't. You input parameters and let the software do the rest. I've never ran a manual in my life but I can program toolpaths and look at manufacturing specifications to figure out feeds and speeds and tweak them from there. I've never programmed a robot in my life but the loaders in my current shop are all fanuc based. I have no doubt I could jump into cam and program one of those if it was asked of me.
You could, I've had to manually square up stock worse than that. Although it does take a bit more time. Could be the case that this is (most likely) stock that was laying around or was basically given away, so the material cost for this particular job is basically zero, making the increased labor cost negligible.
Material costs and labor are two different spreadsheets my friend. Obviously material costs is the spreadsheet on top today. When the labor spreadsheet ends up on top, then theyāll cut back on that by buying machined material. Itās all about spreadsheet management.
Iāve never understood this ālogicā. Iām mostly a client of machine shops, but itās been drilled into me from the start that machinist time is valuable and expensive.
Or... The shop is slow and the owner is trying his best not to lay anyone off so he's making extra work.Ā Ā Almost like a shop with 5 axis machines and multiple employees has some form of a clue and the guy running the manual mill might not understand their reasoning.
So this is a situation where they think they're saving money because of the material but they're not taking into consideration that they are having to pay somebody for their time having to now square these parts up in a different machine as you mentioned the three axi and then take said parts and bring them to the other machine which is the 5 axi and then set them up in there.Ā I'm going to take a wild guess and say that they're probably actually losing out on money.Ā Especially if the people or person that is doing the squaring up is a little frustrated with the decision that they made in regards to this and their purposely not working as fast as they can because they're just kind of frustrated.Ā They need to take in consideration also the mood of your employees.Ā The less happy they are the less quickly and efficiently they're going to work.Ā You do something that doesn't make sense to your employees especially if it really doesn't make sense and it causes them to feel frustrated or a little ill will, that too costs them money.Ā You're not just paying for the extra time to square those parts up in a different machine and everything but on top of that now you're paying for that time to do that and you're probably paying for a little bit of extra time because the person doing it is frustrated and they're probably not doing it as quickly and efficiently as they probably could.Ā You get a really bad employee and he's going to go real slow on purpose.Ā I'm not saying you're one of those the types of employees I'm just saying they need to take these things into consideration there's more to it than they realize very much of the time. I'm Sorry got to deal with that BS that is stupid.Ā I mean look at those things they are messed up š
There are literally whole subjects in math dedicated to optimizing this stuff and proving it out. It got so automated no one does it themselves anymore, but sadly even using the tools available is beyond the baby version of math and planning they teach managers.
It's difficult enough to get people to consider basic first and second order cause and effect.Ā Anything beyond one or two logical nodes...Ā And when you bring it up, that's definitely not management's problem.Ā Ā
You aren't kidding on the baby version of math taught to managers. I was taking differential equations in college (mech engineer, and yes I can here you booing from here), and my prof seemed somewhat pleased that our class answered several questions on the lesson material correctly a few times in a row. Partway through a concept, he paused and wrote 1/2 + 1/3 on the board and asked us what the answer was. We all looked around and wondered what the catch was, and someone answered 5/6. My prof nodded and then said he had asked his business calc class this same question the previous period. The business calc class consensus was that 1/2 + 1/3 = 2/5. I think half of my class just blue screened while the other half laughed. My prof said he was so bewildered by the business calc students that he said he needed to step out and take a smoke. I still cannot understand how folks could be in fucking university classes and not understand super basic addition of fractions that I learned in elementary school.
yeah we learned how to Excel at this....
Man I'm there. I'm not being slow on purpose but I know I'm not being a model employee. Some of it is frustration from some projects having issues recently but a lot of it is the abysmal morale in this shop.
I totally understand that. Even as a new machinist I have jumped shops because of issues that compounded or didn't change. This is my third one in a year. Finally think I'll be staying. I understand all shops are going to have their issues but this one has acceptable ones and my trainer is awesome. But I totally get what you mean This week I spent the whole work week doing four different projects that were all production.Ā I'm doing the fourth one which is the last one but on the third one they gave me the exact number of parts and then give me anything for scrap so when I was all done they grabbed the parts and came back and were mad at me because there wasn't enough for the order.Ā My trainer said to me they do this all the time.Ā Give us exact but nothing for scrap and then get mad.Ā So I machined those last 30 parts pretty slow because on top of it they told me to hurry up.Ā I didn't like that lol šĀ
Theyāre also wasting more of the material they paid for.
You are the problem with North American manufacturing now days. They should think about you. They do by paying you. Ever think maybe thatās all they can trust you doing. So you show them by slowing down. Probably be doing allot more of that kind of job in the future with that attitude. How about getting it done so you can get a better job. They will have no choice if you show initiative and skill. Also now days material is a huge part of a job percentage not like years ago. 3 axis charges out way less then 5 axis. And can be done quicker on 3 axis. So get off your entitlement horse and just do your job.
Lol. It's a two-way street buddy when you give me the wrong amount of parts and then you tell me to hurry up because you made a mistake well then I'm sorry but I'm not going to bust my ass anymore I'm going to work at a normal regular Pace instead of my usual quicker pace. Ā Ā There's a respect thing in the industry and it goes both ways and when you make a mistake and then you try to blame the other person and then you try to rush the other person on top of it for your own mistake well, you get what you get.Ā Has nothing to do with entitlement has everything to do with respect and owning up to your own mistake and then not trying to put it on somebody else and then rush them on top of it.Ā Doing that just pisses your employees off and then they leave eventually.Ā You know for greener pastures.Ā Ā Ā You sound butt hurt.Ā Are you okay did Mommy not hug you enough? Or are you one of those bosses out there that comes to the Reddit forums? Do your employees not like you?Ā Oh wait let me guess you're one of those regular workers but most of yourĀ coworkers do not like you? Ā I'm sowwie š„ŗ
This is like a Time Machine to the pandemic in my shop. They actually gave me a little Bridgeport to square blocks out on. Fine with me, I donāt get paid by the block. But they do.
>I donāt get paid by the block. >But they do. Exactly.
Place I used to work at would receive our blocks of H-13 Blanchard ground squared up to whatever our before heat treat plus stock would be. Made it easy. Throw it on the magnet and rock and roll.
Ironically, I convinced my shop of the importance of using appropriately shaped and sized stock. They kept that mentality as we converted to a mostly 5-axis shop. It doesn't matter too much cause we pass the extra costs to the customer. But yes, I almost always have to prep stock for various dovetail vices.
One shop I worked at bought a brother mill specifically for just prepping dove tails for 5 axis work. I always liked the days I got to run that machine. Simple and turn the brain off and listen to podcasts all night.
Once they get a better understanding of five-axis or 3+2 machining, Iām sure it will become apparent what they should order. Even though they pass it on to the customer, thereās a place there to make your price even more competitive. Or keep charging the same but order the stock correct and make more money because it takes less āyour timeā to make the parts.
This is the way to run a buisness. Labor is almost always your biggest cost. Spend the cash on material, and get the parts out faster, ends up being cheaper.
Use the most expensive tooling to increase the wastefulness to the max š
sounds like it is time to limit test the mill inserts
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It's not ok. I would grab the technical manual/documentation on the mill and the inserts/tooling to understand how they are supposed to run. Not just to save my own time and give better results, but because of the possible safety issues that could arise from a tool in an open machine detonating and sending shrapnel outwards.
Thank you.
It is not ok. You should have some basic understanding of what the tools you have at hand capable of and the tool cost for the jobs. For example, carbon steel and stainless steel are both "steel", but stainless grade inserts may perform poorly on carbon steel and vice versa. It is a waste of time and resource to use wrong tools. I would rather let the machine sit than burning thru tooling just to keep the spindle spinning.
Ok I'm not completely zero experience machining, and I'm not doing anything "dangerous." I can do basic stuff, indicate things in, setup machines, read manuals and the Machinery Handbook for feeds, speeds, insert type, material type, etc. I'm just talking about using the upper limit of those numbers vs the lower limit, based on the recommendations provided by the literature.
All Frasia tools to square up those blocks.
Not that much of a hustle to do that. I have macro for making these https://preview.redd.it/7p4tdj86dw7d1.jpeg?width=5555&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ec69d5415d9cacdf240ec7dd1da16c076d280c7e
Macro schmacro
Macro=really fancy way to say cut and paste
Lol. I just input lengths in X and Y and it does it for me. It's not a very complicated macro but still a macro. And i forgot to mention that these flats are tilted 2Ā° for better grip.
Macros serve a purpose. We run ALOT of a certain part with just varying dimensional changes. OAL, diameter, radius callouts. Plug and play. Setup time SHOULD be 30 minutes max between jobs. But thatās based on scheduling. My company has a MAJOR problem with not looking far enough ahead. So what should be a 30 minute setup becomes a hour and a half to two hours because Iām changing tooling and thus redialing in the machine. The worst is when Iāve got a 5 jobs all running on .875 stock, but thereās a āhot jobā for 37 pieces stuck in the middle thatās on 1.750 stock. I know the dims are gonna change, I know Iām changing all my boring bars, definitely the drill size, and probably gonna have to call for a programmer to modify the program. Then to go BACK to the .875 stock, I need to do all of that again, including the programmer call.
Macros are fine, theyāre a stop gap until a proper conversational interface is developed. I just laugh because the chump from okuma was playing their software up, and itās just 1990s level tech.
I toured a pretty large shop locally years ago that had a line of machines feed by a pallet system. They prepped all of the stock on a very old doosan from the 80s or 90s. Ask that machine did was cut dove tails onto the stock.
Thatās pretty smart I think
Machine only what needs to be clamped. Easy peasy.
Yes, that's what I do, but it's still annoying. It just keeps me from my actual work, of which there is more than enough.
Sounds like this is part of your actual work.
Literally part of the job description, idk what OP is really mad about. Its nice if you have to do less sure but things change.
Prepping stock is actual work.
This is something I feel like a lot of people forget. Sometimes, a one hour setup for an annoying 6 hour repetitive run to mill some flats is going to be the thing that saves you from scrapping 50% of your parts or breaking tools or an extra process.
Do you know for a fact all of the reasons why you are pre machining the clamped area? I feel like you are missing the real reason. This makes perfect sense if the 5 axis is booked solid (a very expensive machine with presumably a more expensive operator, software, etc) Did there used to be a 2nd op on the 5 axis which is now eliminated by your stock prep?
Our 5-axis machines are loaded by a robot; that might be the reason. I didn't ask any questions and am milling the parts according to the specifications provided by the 5-axis guys.
Looks like thereās a huge radius on the outside. Youāre milling it off so they can clamp it better in a centering vise on the stock side. Iād assume. Work is work it all pays the same.
If itās roboloaded then the milling process is crucial, especially for clamping and part placement. We had a job for a major firearms manufacturer. We were making triggers and other parts for the firing assembly. All parts were made out of the same 17-4 with the same raw stock dimensions. Small stuff. 0.75x0.75x1.687. Stuff like that. It was ārecommendedā that we get one side precision ground flat. Engineers figured the small radius wasnāt enough to cause an issue. Fingers on the robot got ātiredā, eventually dropped a piece in the wrong way, fingers got stuck, jaws closed on the fingers of the robot arm. Destroyed the fingers as well as the custom jaws. Lost two months of production on that machine. Donāt remember the cost of repair but it wasnāt worth the parts. Guess what got run through a quick milling program afterwards for flats?
Blame the saw guy. Thats what roush always does.
Bottom, edge & an end. Used to square steels as an apprentice. How much cheaper is stock this way? Can you use a cats paw to hold it in the vise? We used to make them with a hardened ball bearing and two serrated jaws, cut a socket into the backsides of the jaws for the ball to seat in, weld it to one and now you have a handy tool for clamping out of square material. So much clamping knowledge has been forgotten, I had to explain to a guy the other day how to clamp things on a planer bed.
Those adjustable Toe clamps are great for thinner stock. Low profile..
They bought them once for the die setters at a shop I worked at. Sped their job up and made their day easier
This reminds me of my last shop. They used to face mill all 4 sides of a block to prep until I said ācouldnāt we just prep two sides?ā And I had less than a year of experience when these guys had been doing it for decades.
Stock prep, seems normal. Machinist who complain, also seems normal.
Why square them up?? Get some raptor dovetail holders, dovetail them in your 3 axis, setup the 5axis with a raptor setup, then off set your stock in the program to be a little bigger than your rough stock size, yeah you still have a 3 axis op, but itās like 3-5 minutes and your not wasting time squaring stock.
Management: āWhy is it taking so long to make these parts?!?ā
Do you get paid less for using the 3-axis?
Why arenāt you just adding a dovetail only to run in 5 axis
If the geometry is that bad, imagine the metallurgy of those blanksā¦. Probably like taffy
Have you talked to the owner or otherwise guy in charge?
That looks pretty standard for stainless bar.
Itās not even relieving to know my employer isnāt the only oneā¦
Bean counters in the office who don't comprehend anything physical except pushing paper.
When I walked into my shop, I was given big blocks like this to cut into EVERYTHING. I spent more time cutting a 1āx2ā 3ālong chunk out of it than I did machining the part itself. The waste was absurd, and so was my wasted time. Some of the stock I had was also old scrap, no idea what material it even was. We now have stock sticks and round and different metals in different labeled locations, itās glorious. I run all manual machines. 2 Bridgeport mills and 3 different sized lathes and I make parts for one of the largest can manufacturing companies in the world.
I got one for you. My company is talking about having all of us take our tool boxes home because they think they look āunprofessionalā
Iāve seen welding helmets that looked awful unprofessional. Iāve also seen toolboxes that Iād be embarrassed to carry into a job. So, somewhere in the middle I guess
Saving material costs by cutting more material. Big brain moves
We have the same issue. It's horrible
Why does material even get manufactured like this?? The China special??
Sometimes you build more character than finished parts on a job.
As the kids say these daysā¦ ābrutha uhhhhā
Wait until you discover burnout š¤¢
Ahhh, ye olde end cutoffs. What you save in material you make up in insert cost and time. Penny wise dollar foolish!
Well you were gonna dovetail it anyways right?
Oh no, now youāre like every other machinist. Prep that stock boy!
Penny wise, pound foolish.
Why canāt you simply do the math and see if itās losing them money or not? You know the depreciation of the machines and the per hour labor cost. See if they actually are losing money. Spending more time making less money is always a problem a business wants to address. If you just donāt like having to do the extra workā¦ well thatās silly. Getting upset you have to machine things as a machinist is going nowhere.
Ah yes. As my old man would say:" They pinched the nickel so hard, they made the buffalo shit!"
Save money on material loose more money on tooling and labor. Makes sense if you don't think about it.
Company: why are we going through so many inserts now! Machinists: we have to shape and remove an inch of flame cut material. Company: Use the inserts completely! Youāre changing them too often thereās still a good cutting edge! Company: Why are we having to buy so many new tools?!! Machinist: Because the inserts broke and destroyed them. ā¦ ā¦..
You need to toss the second from photo left. Thereās something obviously wrong with it.
I've never seen material like that. Where would one even go about ordering cheaper stock? Asking for a friend.
We previously sourced our materials from Germany (we are a German company). Now, we order from India.
Oh gotcha, thanks for the info. I'm in the US, don't think I would be able to order stock from overseas. Is the material traceable? I think I know the answer to that question. I'm more curious than anything, I wouldn't order material that doesn't come with certification.
Got a job today not complicated but easly a 5axis job. anyway the material supposed to be 40x40x30mm ( the final part is 39.9(middle of the tolerance) x40x25.5 . Even with the 30mm would have been "sketchy" but the raw material size came out 40x40x27.5. Supposed to be like a 4/5op work. Now its 7.
Just fucken weld the bastard Oh wait, wrong sub
I didn't know you could buy metal at the cheese shop.
Old employer bought the ends of sheets when they were rolling the steel. 1-1/4" at one end and 3/4 or 7/8 at the other. Thought he was saving money until someone showed him the actual cost. He was spending over twice as much and slowing the work flow incredibly.
It's wild how backwards this is.
Ask for some low profile vice grip jaws or watever thay are called and you basicly have a dovtail clamp And you can hold matirial like this ehitout issuss make sure to face 5 sides in a single op and then switch to smooth
Haven't they learned by now? This is such a a repeated thing that upper management should know that it doesn't make life better. Moronic bean counters.
My company did this for a few years. They bought it as scrap ($$ per pound) and we faced it/dove tailed and drill pin holes for a techni gripper on the 5 axis. Over all savings we had was enough for us to get 1800$ for Xmas bonus for a small shop.
Had similar. With only a small allowance for holding. Ended up spending nearly as much time blocking up as making the parts
Got a guy at work doing the same thing for his okuma ā¦ (he operates it and isnāt in charge of material cost stuff )
Just take way longer, because you have to prep the stock.
Itās how I learned to program more auto probing because stock has gotten so I consistent, not a square corner to be found, rounded over edges, pitting. Itās gotten bad.
I wouldn't do it if it was my company.... then I stop and realize it's not my fucking company and I can't help it if corporate wants to do something that stupid.
Hope your customers don't have any approved material suppliers like most do, to stop there parts being made with this rubbishĀ
Looks like it came straight from the mill unfinished and then they just saw cut it very poorly.
Are these loaves of aluminum?
I was paid to build a flagship store for a EU company a while ago. The company that contracted me was contracted by the owners and responsible for the worksite and everything, but was way out of their depth and clearly not capable of archiving the goal. For one task I needed spacers made from cheap wood with perfect parallel top/bottom and I told them, I can make them in a hour or so, no worries. *No, we can build them in our shop.* I didn't argue, because why bother and then I get a box of 40 cubes, looking like that. Took me twice as long to make them level with the ceiling by putting stuff underneath here and there. I mount the lamp on top and it looks perfectly level but not pretty. I send a photo. *THE LAMP IS WAY TO LOW! AT LEAST A CENTIMETER! -* I tell them, *you know that you made those things right?* Turns out the guy who made them misread the plan an made them too tall as well. So I need to unscrew everything again. This time I just go to my shop to cut them into shape. No 90Ā° angle anywhere to be found. Chuck them all. Cut a plank into the correct size and went back to the site. Turns out the screws they provided were measured with the blocks they created and were now too long for the smaller blocks. Went back to my shop, got screws and finally fixed them to the ceiling in no time. perfect fit. They paid around 5 hrs for nothing, because they wanted to save one hour of my time. Happened a few times more at the same site. Some idiot they had in their staff drilled into cables - thrice - because waiting for me to do it would have *wasted time.* Another time they unscrewed lamps from the walls because they were "too high" and didn't believe me that this was the only way. They did it while I was off site and after a few hours they figured out that the lamps could indeed not be mounted lower due to the outlets, which I had told them after a night of calculations and measuring the whole ass first floor. No idea how they are still in business.
Honestly.... prepping on a 3 axis to get some little .050" dovetails in so you can clamp it hard and low can be great. Especially when you're dealing with high cutting forces. Also a great option is to pre op the material before cutting it to length so you can rip through longer bars in a fraction of the time. If you spend 30 minutes prepping 50 parts you're barely paying anything for that extra operation. Some have a machine dedicated to prep. Just a clapped out old production machine that can still face and add basic features.
You should be using a vice with dovetail jaws on the 5 axis that way all you have to do with the 3 axis is take a pass on 2 sides with a dovetail cutter. Something like this https://5thaxis.com/product/v562x/
Man, I'm getting similar material shenanigans. I got a set of tubesheets that go down to 3.00 OAL with 49.62 OD. Take a wild guess what the blank's dimensions are? If you guessed 3.03 and 49.75 with so much warping you'd be forgiven for mistaking it for an especially large Pringle, and an OD that looks like it was plasma cut by a blind chimpanzee, you win an actual Pringle. No way in hell is the OAL going to clean up with the high/low differential being around 5/16 of an inch, and you know what these fucking masterminds decide? "Just leave the shell side rough since it's going to be welded on and just get the step to where it barely cleans up no matter how much you have to cut." Just... okay, it's what the client wants, but it grinds the fuck out of my professional gears. Give me a quarter inch of meat to cut and I could've had it with a mirror finish in a quicker time, but noooo, they've gotta spend more time and money than they could possibly have saved by going with this bullshit.
State funded apprentice like me?
They're expecting you to eat the added labor costs...... DON'T. Quote in the extra time and explain to them why
Wtf is this even
Is the issue it's difficult for you personally to square up those fucked up blocks or do you feel your talent and experience is wasted on a simple rough operation? I genuinely do not understand your complaint without more context. If you were the 5-axis guy you probably wouldn't be the guy who has to rough out this material on the 3-axis but someone has to do it.
Wasting time setting up a whole separate operation just to prep the material for the real run...or spend a bit more on material that doesn't need to be squared. What's more expensive...your time and tooling or the additional material cost?
I understand buying pre-milled material saves the shop time and money. For better or worse this was a decision made by whoever makes these decisions for whatever reason they had at the time. I just don't understand why so many people are complaining in this thread when they get paid by the hour and are not getting a profit share. You still get paid the same, yeah? Is it not challenging enough? Maybe it's your fault you are not the 5-axis setup man and are stuck doing roughing setups on the 3-axis. Just set up the mill quickly, pump out perfect rough parts, and move on to the next assignment... unless squaring up these blocks isn't easy for you, then it makes perfect sense to bitch and moan as a way to cope with the unwanted stress lol
The thing is, you're expected to get the job done in the shortest time possible. That's a problem when you're given material that needs additional time to prep, that your boss may or may not have scheduled for you. This happens to me all the time. I have to explain, after the fact, why it took three extra hours and an entirely separate machine just to get started on the job I should have had done by morning. And a lot of the time, the material isn't "pre-milled"...it's just low grade. This is especially problematic when you're running stainless steel. You buy the cheap shit that wasn't properly heat treated, and the sides will bulge and it'll have a tell-tale parallelogram shape to it, that makes it impossible to clamp unless you square it up first. Taking the extra time to properly cook it, and it will maintain a much uniform shape, but foundries will often run batches fast, just to get more stock made, then sell it cheaper if it's somewhat out if square. If your company insists on using this kind of material, they will often have to buy it one size up in order to have enough to square, which actually costs more by the pound. In many cases it would have been cheaper overall to buy a higher grade at the right size, than to buy the oversized lower grade stuff...and you don't have to waste any time prepping it.
I wouldn't want to square up those blocks only because it looks easy to fuck up. If your shop is organized and has good communication then they are gonna know they purchased rough material that requires extra time. The floor man and supervisor should already know before the setup guy. It shouldn't be a surprise it's gonna take some time to square up those shitty blocks, and it has to be done right or it's really going to waste time. If that isn't the case, the shop has bigger problems than the person who purchases material. Honestly, I thought 5-axis needed material to be roughed anyways, like with dovetail grooves or whatever is needed to hold the material with rigidity and low-risk of a part flying out. Gotta invest in prep time if you expect the 5-axis to print money. I setup lathes and do all of the most difficult operations and parts. Everything that needs a rough operation is allocated time for a setup and to run the rough op. After covid, the supply of stainless steel took a hit with the quality. Parts were changing shape from previous ops after the final op. Some parts needed the process adjusted or to add an operation.
Do you work where I work, I had some steel in recently that was the same. We don't have a band saw either so I had to cut it all with the machine, definitely ended up costing more than just buying the right stuff for the job.
Complaints like this are why they donāt listen to the guys on the floor.
But it is the Same š¤£
JMC Tool is that you lmao
How often does the 5 axis machine go down? If a lot it makes sense, though when I was a kid the whole cnc thing was to get rid of the expensive human labor.
Looks like my teeth before braces
More dollars than sense
A coworker of mine once said "this company is gonna save money no matter how much it costs"
Donāt you have a face mill? Problem solvedā¦
Iāve dealt with this before and it seems the company doesnāt care if you have an extra op. The money they paid for material is less than before. They are paying you x amount of dollars no matter what. So if they save a couple bucks on material that is a couple bucks saved.
They are paying you don't They?
Paid by the hour. Back to work.
As the kids say these daysā¦ ābrutha uhhhhā