Methods Engineering CNC Programming

Fundamental and Advanced
Manufacturing Engineering Services

Manufacturing Alliance Associates, Inc. 720 Maple Street, East Aurora, New York 14052-1012 716-652-4510

Continuously evolving, resulting in faster customer response time for increased machine tool and cutting tool utilization, and shorter cycle times.
Since 1993 implementing technology for businesses where resources are non-existent or during a growth initiative.

BENEFIT PROVIDER FOR PROBLEMS, PROCESSES, PROJECTS AND PEOPLE.

[Standardization]: ''the development and implementation of concepts, doctrines, procedures and designs to achieve and maintain the required levels of compatibility, interchangeability or commonality in the operational, procedural, material, technical and administrative fields to attain interoperability.''
[CNC Programming Services] [Entry Level CAD/CAM] [Post Processors] [Simulation] [Machining Parameters] [Thread Mills] [Home]

QUANTIFIED PERFORMANCE FOR CAPITAL EXPENDITURES
PROJECTS RANGING FROM $1,000 TO $5,000,000

BTR CARD $1K INGERSOLL MASTERHEAD $5M

STATE THE INCIDENT, THE POINT, AND THE BENEFIT IN THREE MINUTES OR LESS;
PREPARE FOR THE WORST AND YOU HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR, AND YOU EARN THE RIGHT TO SPEAK. (Dale Carnegie)

GENERAL TERMS:

Quotes are valid for 90 days unless otherwise specified.
Due to metal market fluctuations, quotations are subject to review and acceptance at time of order unless otherwise specified . We will notify you at the time of your approval of any up or down change in material cost or availability impacting quoted price and lead time.
Drawing time number of weeks based on project and after receipt of purchase order (contract) unless otherwise specified.
Manufacturing lead time number of weeks based on project and after receipt of purchase order unless otherwise specified.
Conceptual drawings for project initiation only. Initial release to purchase order and initial release for manufacturing at time of order.
Customer requested drawing changes will be quoted on Manufacturing Alliance Associates, Inc. engineering change notice form and signed and dated receipt by the customer prior change execution.
The purchase order can only be canceled upon written notification by the customer to Manufacturing Alliance Associates, Inc. Upon receipt of cancellation, the contract will be settled based on the total cost that has been committed and/or incurred, plus associated profit less the price of any deliver service or product.

MOTION CONTROLS MANUFACTURER - END USER
MACHINE TOOL DISTRIBUTOR - CUSTOMER

PROJECT - FAMILY OF PARTS MACHINING

CORE PRODUCT FAMILY-OF-PARTS PROCESS STANDARDIZATION

ISSUE:

A CNC machine tool builder had a prospective customer in the motion controls industry who wanted to improve productivity by implementing horizontal machining center technology for producing a core product family-of-parts. The justification was quantified by MAA comparing present and proposed methods of the following: lot size, number of machining operations, setup time, run time, queue time and lead time. The budget was $500,000 and the timetable 6 months. MAA proposed the process, including budgetary numbers for justification, purchase, installation, methodology, programming, and debugging. Precision machining was performed within one operation on a pallet shuttle system with work piece probing and limited attended machining. The number of inventory turns were increased approximately from 40 to 200. To verify the results, an accounting analysis captured all the work-in-progress of the family-of-parts queued to the existing work centers. The raw material and labor charges were calculated for all the work orders in queue. The return-on-investment was realized in months.

APPROACH:

horizontal machining center with pallet shuttle
workholding and tool holders and cutting tools
custom macro B and parametric programming
automated workpiece and tool probing
broken tool detection

RESULT: $20 main component to a $156 assembly cycle tested and shipped for $800 to $3,200.

[ PROJECT BASELINE PART DETAIL ]


SAVINGS SUMMARY	PRESENT	PROPOSED	DELTA	REDUCTION PERCENTAGE
LOT SIZE	300.0	50.0	250.0	83%
NUMBER OF OPERATIONS	22	7	15	68%
SETUP HOURS	24.0	4.0	20.0	83%
RUN HOURS	300.0	50.0	250.0	83%
QUEUE HOURS	275.0	90.0	185.0	67%
LEAD TIME HOURS	599.0	144.0	455.0	76%

CAM SCREW MACHINE TOOL BUILDER - END USER
MACHINE TOOL DISTRIBUTOR - CUSTOMER

PROJECT - 24 HOURS BUILD TO ORDER

CUSTOM WORKHOLDING
INTERACTIVE PROGRAMMING SOLUTION

ISSUE: improve response time to market demand for screw machine cams machined in-house on conventional machine tools.

METHOD: purchase a new CNC vertical machining center, integrate custom hydraulic fixtures, and develop and debug a family-of-parts program to generate the CNC programs transparently to the cell machinists with zero setup time and with lots sizes of 1 to many.

RESULT: standard cams shipped in 24 hours and custom cams shipped in 4 working days.

MOTION CONTROLS MANUFACTURER - END USER
CAD/CAM OEM - CUSTOMER

PROJECT - EXISTING CNC PROGRAMS CONVERSION

4-AXIS MACHINING CENTERS

G-CODE REVERSE POST PROCESSING

A common approach to programming is off-line, using computer aided manufacturing (CAM) software to generate a cutter location (CL) file and then post process the file into a G-code program for any unique CNC machine. If you have a post processor for each respective machine control unit, the CL file can be re-post processed and the part can be transferred to any suitable CNC machine.

When CNC machines are manually programmed, the g-code files can be read into some CAM systems like a CL file and then re-processed (reverse post processed).

ISSUE:

A manufacturer of motion controls systems has a facility in the Philippines for machining sophisticated hydraulic motion control component parts on numerous four axis CNC vertical machining centers (VMC) knee mill style. Over a period of greater than ten years, had created over 4,000 g-code programs. The programs contained tool probing, work piece probing, multiple work piece fixture offsets, tool length and cutter diameter compensation, and man readable instructions. The existing VMC needed to be replaced, and management decided to purchase all VMCs with a bed style. The existing programs would have to be converted over to the new machines with pallet systems and different control units. The company estimated an average of 4.5 hours to convert and debug each program, implying 3 persons for 3 years. The timetable and the debugging were expensive. The MAA alternative was to directly read in the existing g-code programs individually, interactively answer the questions presented immediately after compiling the data, and reverse post process the g-code and graphically verify the output. The average MAA conversion time was 0.50 hours to convert and debug a program, implying 1 person for 1 year.

ALTERNATIVES:

manually convert g-code files between machines
reverse post process g-code files between the machines

SOLUTION: reverse post process simply by answering questions automatically prompted

BENEFIT: accurate program conversions in minutes, not hours or days.

WORKPIECE AND TOOL LENGTH PROBING, 4-AXIS MACHINING, FIXTURE OFFSETS AND SUBROUTINES

SNOWMOBILE RACING COMPONENTS OEM - CUSTOMER & END USER

PROJECT - 4 AXIS HELIX MILLING ON EXISTING EQUIPMENT

FAMILY-OF-PARTS
G-CODE PROGRAM

INCIDENT: a snowmobile racing components manufacturer wanted to improve response time to market demand for snowmobile multi-angle helix clutches. The clutches were outsourced for lack of in-house capability of 4-axis (X, Y, Z & A) CNC vertical machining center contour milling. The manufacturer received recommendations to retrofit the existing machine or purchase a new machine with a capable control unit. The MAA alternative was to provide a CAM system with an interactive family-of-parts program which could output 4-axis g-code and axis motion on the existing machine and with the existing control unit. The result was an investment for a fraction of the cost, requiring clerical data entry of clutch features to automatically generate accurate, unedited 4-axis g-code.

POINT: either purchase a new CNC vertical machining center due to the existing machine control unit 4th axis programming restrictions or purchase a CAM system with a custom program which will overcome the restrictions.

BENEFIT: for less than 5% the cost of a new machine tool requiring only clerical data entry of clutch features, automatically generate accurate, unedited g-code.

BORON NITRIDE MANUFACTURER'S ENGINEERING DEPT. - CUSTOMER & END USER

PROJECT - QUANTIFIED MACHINE TOOL JUSTIFICATION

CNC MACHINING CENTER COST ANALYSIS

INCIDENT:

provide a method to quantify a machine tool selection
define the requirements to local machine tool distributors
minimize the capital investment requirement and meet-the-requirements for the project

POINT:

[Spreadsheet Analysis]

BENEFIT:

INVESTMENT..........................................$166,000............$130,000

SAVINGS..............................................................................................$36,000

JOB SHOP - CUSTOMER & END USER

PROJECT- DNC NETWORK INSTALLATION & TRAINING

BEHIND-THE-TAPE-READERS

& DNC NETWORK

INCIDENT:

A local job shop has dozens of machine tools. Only 8 are CNC. They included lathes and vertical and horizontal machining centers. The machines were stand-alone. They were not networked to a PC through a DNC system. Some machine were still operated by tape readers and punched tape. First release program debugging was expensive, and the readers provided low reliability. A simple and low cost investment to improve productivity in program prove-out was to eliminate punched tape with behind-the-tape-readers and RS232 cables connected from each CNC machine to a shop floor computer loaded with DNC software for file management, editing and communications. The MAA upgraded approach provided a very generous return-on-investment.

POINT:

define PC requirements
supply and install DNC system to connect to shop floor computer to the following five (5) NC/CNC machine tools and respective control units: OKK CNCMATE II Meldas, OKUMA LC10 OSP3000L, MAZAK VQC-20/50B Mazatrol CAM M-2, OKUMA LB15 OSP5000L-G, and MAZAK V12 Fanuc 6M
interface BTR card to OKK and LC10 NC tape readers
interface eight (8) port electronic RS232 switch
load and configure DNC software (file manager, editor and communications)
connect RS232 cables between shop floor computer and five (5) machines
connect RS232 cables between tape/punch reader and shop floor computer
connect ethernet network cables between office computer and shop floor computer
transcribe executive tapes to computer disk
train employees

BENEFIT:

load or run NC programs directly from PC
eliminate punched tape
integrate older NC tape machines with a modern DNC system
reduces first release programming time
improve reliability
expand NC memory

Education, Training & Practice

Methods CNC Programming Tool Design Design Drafting Setup & Operation QA ERP CAD/CAM
If you always do what you have always done, you will always get what you always got.
Improvements are achieved through education, training and practice.

Fanuc    Haas    Siemens    Heidenhain    Seicos    Meldas    Dynapath    Allen Bradley    Acramatic    Mazatrol   PC-Based
Haas    Mazak    DMG    Index    Ingersoll    G&L    Citizen    Star    Toyoda   Hitachi   Doosan    Parpas    Soraluce
AutoCAD    Solidworks    Rhino3d    UG    Cadra    CADDS
GibbsCAM    Esprit    PartMaker    MF Programmer
ShopCAM    APT   Compact II   Nicam
Vericut    MachineWorks   Predator

Certified Technical Training - Partial Listing

MACHINE TOOLS & CONTROL UNITS

Machining Center Programming Haas
Siemens 840D Programming DMG America
Gildemeister Twin Technology DMG America
Mazatrol M-32 CNC Programming Mazak Corporation
SEICOS M-III Programming Hitachi Seiki
Fanuc Programming Toyoda Machinery USA Inc.
Index Siemens C200 NC Programming Index Corporation
Hydrapath III Programming Moog Hydra-Point
Cinturn CNC Turning Center Operations Cincinnati Milacron

CAD/CAM SYSTEMS

Unigraphics Polster & McDonnell Douglas
Graphic, CL & APT Programming ShopCAM
CADDS-4 Computervision Corporation
Compact II NC Programming Manufacturing Data Systems Inc.

SIMULATION & VERIFICATION

MF Programmer 3D DMG America
Vericut 3D Solid Model NC Verification CGTech
NC Verify 3D Solid Model NC Verification Sirius Systems Corporation (MachineWorks)

MANUFACTURING

Principles of Lean Manufacturing Insyte
Microsoft Access For Windows New Horizons
Geometric Dimensioning & Tolerancing Technical Consultants Incorporated
Effective Manufacturing Cells University of Wisconsin-Madison
Laser Material Processing University of Wisconsin-Madison