March 2007 Edition

TOOLHOLDING

The Right Match of Components Cut Costs 50 Percent

Using a toolholder that matched machine accuracy let a shop cut costs and retain customers

It’s not enough to have the best machinery a shop can buy, it has to be sure that all of the equipment works together to get the best performance from each unit. For Turnamatic Machine, Inc., it was mating a toolholder to a turning center that cut down margins and retained customers.

Medical components produced by Turnamatic routinely require tolerances of 0.0001"

In recent years, competition within the manufacturing industry has reached unprecedented levels. For many American manufacturers, a global market demands more flexibility and a willingness to adapt to changing conditions. Even for those immune to foreign rivals, competition is rising as technological innovation advances. For Turnamatic, Richardson, TX, profitability has been a combination of investments in new technology and maximizing return on those investments.

Jim Proctor, the president of Turnamatic, founded the shop in 1968. Its reputation for quality provided it with opportunities to work with cutting-edge companies in a variety of industries until the early 1980s, when it narrowed its focus to medical manufacturing.

Today, the company primarily produces high-precision components for blood testing equipment. Because of this niche market, Turnamatic doesn’t face foreign competition.

“The government maintains strict regulations for the types of parts we produce, including the requirement that they must be manufactured within the United States,” Proctor said. “This eliminates the threat posed by countries with low labor costs and allows us to focus on the issues unique to our market.”

Demanding Customers

Turnamatic’s challenges are customer demands for shorter turnaround times and higher accuracy levels. While a month used to be acceptable for producing prototypes, customers often need them in two weeks or less. The company routinely holds tolerances to 0.0001", with some jobs requiring even higher levels of precision. While competition may not come from abroad, it still exists and meeting customers’ stringent demands is requisite to continued success.

To meet stricter demands, Turnamatic invests heavily in technology. The shop purchases primarily Mitsubishi and Kitamura machining centers for high productivity and accuracy. Turnamatic also looks beyond the primary investment in machine tools to ensure complementary components provide the necessary value.

Because of its results, Turnamatic has standardized on the powRgrip toolholding system wherever possible

“Some shops will do all the right legwork in purchasing a machine, but then mistakenly feel like that’s all there is to it,” Proctor said. “You can have the perfect machine sitting in your shop, but it’s completely worthless if you’ve selected the wrong tooling or are using the wrong processes. We’re careful to look at the whole picture, because that’s the only way to guarantee that a machine will perform to the specs you need.”

Needed Boost

Through its constant evaluation of machining operations, Turnamatic found the opportunity to boost machine performance by adopting a new toolholding system. Turnamatic used a variety of toolholders to maintain precision machining, including heat-shrink models. Today, the company primarily uses the powRgrip collet system from Rego-Fix.

The powRgrip system has a mini-press that generates six tons of force that join a toolholder and collet. While the systems Turnamatic previously used relied on heat to expand the components, powRgrip uses the mechanical properties of the holder material to generate clamping forces through the interface between the toolholder and collet. Turnamatic found the system increases accuracy at high feeds and speeds, to maintain tight tolerances with higher productivity.

The change in toolholding provided savings throughout Turnamatic’s operations. On one job, the company was machining a part from 2.25" aluminum plate. The customer asked for a $400 price reduction, but profit margins were already slim. To lower costs, the customer considered changing from machining to a machined casting. Turnamatic just integrated the powRgrip system on the relatively new Mitsubishi machining center that produces the part. Management decided to experiment with increased feeds and speeds.

Turnamatic was running a 1" 3-flute endmill at 10,000 rpm and 100 ipm. With the powRgrip system, the company raised the cutting speed to 15,000 rpm and the feedrate to 150 ipm. In addition to the productivity gain, the powRgrip system also maintained higher levels of accuracy than the previous toolholding system. This proved especially valuable, as the component had extremely thin walls and as much as 50 percent of the produced parts became scrap. With the new toolholding system’s increased accuracy, the scrap levels dropped to less than two percent.

Cutting Metal and Costs

Because of the improvements in the machining process, Turnamatic experienced significant cost reductions that let the company reduce the customer pricing to $200, a decrease of 50 percent. The solution was more cost efficient than the customer’s proposal to machine the component from a casting.

“The powRgrip system provided significant improvements in tool balancing and concentricity of the toolholder and tool,” Proctor said. “With the limitations of our previous toolholding equipment, we were unable to run our machines at full potential. Now we can take much better advantage of the capabilities of our machines.” Rego-Fix

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What do you think?
Will the information in this article increase efficiency or save time, money, or effort? Let us know by e-mail from our website at www.ModernApplicationsNews.com or e-mail the editor at pnofel@nelsonpub.com.