Product category:
Manufacturing industry news
News Release from: Seiki Systems
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 27 May 2004
Take advantage of a free DNC package
offer
Having invested some GBP 500,000 in the last 18 months on new machine tools a subcontractor took advantage of a free-of-charge DNC package offered to new machine purchasers.
Having invested some GBP 500,000 in the last 18 months on new machine tools and currently installing the first Mori Seiki NH 4000 DGG twin-pallet horizontal machining centre in the UK, subcontractor Marquin Engineering Co., of Heathtown, Wolverhampton, took advantage of the free-of-charge DNC package offered to new machine purchasers by Seiki Systems of Brighton and ordered software to cover its other eight machine tools The company was looking to improve its CNC program management, control of programs and traceability to capitalise on the investments made in machine tools
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 13 Feb 2001 at 8.00am (UK)
Related stories
DNC ups productivity at Parker Hannifin
As part of the drive towards order-driven lean manufacturing, the Seiki Systems DNC system at Parker Hannifin of Rotherham has speeded up CNC program downloading considerably.
Machine monitoring repays many times over
For Colin Smith at HPC Engineering, a relatively modest investment in a Seiki Systems machine monitoring system, for 46 CNC machine tools, has been repaid many times over.
This led to an investigation of the 'free-of-charge' offer by Seiki Systems and the confirmation that one of the products was ideally suited to the production requirements it had.
Maintains joint managing director George Spencer: "As the offer included all the management software, together with commissioning to the new Mori Seiki machine, it was a relatively low cost addition to include our other CNC machines.
So we placed the order to extend the installation across our other eight CNC machines." Marquin Engineering runs its five horizontal machining centres, one a large, high speed 630 mm by 630 mm pallet machine, a Chiron F208 vertical machining centre and three, two-axis 8, 10 and 12 inch chuck lathes 24 hours/day through Monday to Friday.
Further reading
Wireless DNC avoids cabling, adds flexibility
A totally independent method of communicating between the control systems of CNC machine tools and a centralised remote PC has been developed for distribution and control of machining programs.
Software ensures program control and traceability
Software enables strict control and traceability of computer programs transferred to CNC machine tools and processing equipment, thus assuring users full compliance with quality standards.
Software gives dynamic real time production status
Software packages that give a dynamic live display of production status provide CNC machine tools users with total control and awareness in 'real time' of what is happening on the shopfloor.
It supplies a wide customer base from military communications, railway electrification and track, commercial vehicle suspension, off-road vehicle, hydraulic valve and transmission customers with batches of work that range from 50 to 3,000 units a day.
With this type of work, CNC machining programs can often be large and complex and with very frequent set ups on the shopfloor, management of the CNC program is critical in order to maintain control of what is happening and get the highest utilisation of the machine.
But as George Spencer adds: "We still need to be more efficient and our attention to detail sends a strong message to our customers that we are a professional business.
Here, the Seiki Systems software helps to confirm that image." With brother Edward, George Spencer bought the remaining shares in the business from their parents three years ago and pursued an 'invest to progress' policy.
"We can compete against low wage economies with technology," maintains George Spencer, "by utilising our 15 people to work effectively, take advantage of our investment in hydraulic fixturing to combine operations, reduce the number processes and hence production lead time.
With a new Brown and Sharpe DEA co-ordinate measuring machine, we can guarantee quality and our growing order book is an endorsement that what we are doing is competitive and right." The Seiki Systems DNC offer was not an abridged version of the software with limited use restriction but a fully functional, including installation, training and three months support package, that could be worth up to GBP 6,000 per installation.
The top level module, for instance, is able to provide machine monitoring, remote information data collection and alarms.
In addition, work planning and job queue management can be installed by Seiki Systems to reduce the delays in gaining the current information on the shopfloor by the normal word of mouth methods and reducing the mountains of paper work that can be generated in a production environment.
• Seiki Systems: contact details and other news
• Email this article to a colleague
• Register for the free Manufacturingtalk email newsletter
• Manufacturingtalk Home Page
