Production Monitoring: Automated.

Tool life is a critical component of CNC machines. When managed well, it can result in greater productivity, higher quality, less scrap, and significantly less downtime. Monitoring tool life manually is problematic; it requires an operator to complete an inspection and capture data. Most modern equipment uses software in a tool life management system to measure and control the micro and macro variables required for long tool life. Tool Life Monitoring: The Basics Tool life...

We Need More People! Maybe… What if we helped our existing team be more efficient? What if we empowered our shop floor personnel with the right information and tools to ensure they could focus on the most valuable tasks at hand? While machines and systems are key to operational efficiency, leadership knows that people are the greatest asset on the shop floor. We need to hire, train, and upskill operators to do excellent, value-added work day after day to hit production goals...

Manufacturing companies always focus on downtime to improve processes and increase efficiency in a facility. There are many different categories of downtime, including downtime from jams, breakdowns, operator errors, and more. Machine setup is one area where downtime is manageable and predictable. It’s critical to efficient business processes and producing profitable parts with the least amount of time and resources. And in discrete industries like CNC machining, it can make...

Whether you are tracking overall equipment effectiveness (OEE), machine utilization, or simply the number of finished parts, manufacturing success comes down to one simple, general goal: production efficiency. Production efficiency is the standard that manufacturing operations have used to prove how well they’re doing and identify which procedures need to be improved, where bottlenecks exist, what capacity is available, and where to invest time and resources. It’s a concept...

Diving Deep into Machine Performance and Health Over Time Recently we have made several key updates to the Machine Timeline, one of the most commonly used features in MachineMetrics. For those less familiar with the Machine Timeline, here is a quick primer on what the timeline is and its capabilities: Timelines provide an interactive view for each machine showing changes in machine cycle status during a specified time range. MachineMetrics users can view machine faults and...

What Does Quality Control Do In Manufacturing? Quality control is a process that uses best practices, strict adherence to standards, and specifications to deliver products without defects. With tight quality control (QC) measures, companies can better manage costs, reduce waste, and protect themselves from brand damage and liability that often accompanies defective products. The key to managing quality control programs is ensuring strict adherence to standardized processes....

Data is critical to the success of manufacturing. Without it, companies lose track of their production, resulting in inefficiency, missed deliveries, and stifled CI programs. With it, a company can manage production processes, implement process improvement, quote accurately, and control costs. But there is a caveat that many overlook. Even in companies with aggressive and well-audited data collection strategies, manual data collection has a major negative impact. Capturing...

Trends indicate that the CNC market could be as large as $140.7 billion by 2029, up from $86.83 billion in 2022. This number represents a 61% expected increase in the next seven years. Driven by new economic demands and the move toward mass customization of goods, CNC has a big future ahead. The explosion of the industrial internet of things (IIoT) technology is on an intersecting course with this growth. Like CNC machining, IIoT has a bright and busy future ahead. The IIoT...

This article is part of a series discussing the value of machine data for shop floor management systems. Integrating machine assets into your connected factory ecosystem unlocks accurate, real-time production data that can be used to enhance not only production, but many other functions across both the shop floor and in business operations, from maintenance and quality, to quoting and planning. The Value of Connecting Equipment to Shop Floor Systems The Value of Machine Data...

This article is part of a series discussing the value of machine data for shop floor management systems. Integrating machine assets into your connected factory ecosystem unlocks accurate, real-time production data that can be used to enhance not only production, but many other functions across both the shop floor and in business operations, from maintenance and quality, to quoting and planning. The Value of Connecting Equipment to Shop Floor Systems The Value of Machine Data...