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Weekly UpdatesKennebec Tool & Die, Augusta, ME, follows two traditions: delivery of quality work on-time, and a solid Maine work ethic coupled with Yankee ingenuity.
The first tradition takes attention to detail due to the tight tolerances required by its aerospace, defense, semi-conductor, and medical customers.
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In the second tradition, each of the company's 70 employees takes pride in creating machining solutions for the most challenging parts and assemblies it faces.
Kennebec runs three shifts, seven days a week, processing metals from aluminums to stainless to hard alloys, such as Inconel. It looks to make efficiency gains any way it can. With that in mind, it embarked on a Lean manufacturing program to eliminate waste. Standardization of processes, equipment, and tools were ways to streamline operations.
Relief Pitching
"We needed to examine our inventory of machines and our number of vendors," Harvey Smith, vice president of operations, said. "As part of the standardization platform, we purchased machines with through-spindle coolant. We were climbing a learning curve to optimize these when Seco technical specialist Bryan Daniels contacted us. We hadn't worked much with Seco Tools in the past, but Bryan had a good pitch," Smith said.
"Actually, there was a hot problem," Daniels said. Seco Tools North American headquarters is located in Troy, MI.
"That's right," Paul Owen, tooling room supervisor, said. "We blew up a drill on a milling machine, and Bryan said he could have a Seco Perfomax drill shipped to us by the next day. He came to the rescue on this job, which opened the door for other opportunities."
The Perfomax Indexable insert drills feature an optimized chip flute design, low friction coated drill body, and strong inserts. This lets users increase productivity and reduce total cost by boosting speeds and feeds while avoiding common problems of deflection, poor tool life, and quality, even with long lengths and deep-hole drilling applications.
At that time, Kennebec was looking to upgrade drills in a number of areas. As part of the Lean manufacturing effort, the company wanted to reduce the number of drill styles by determining which product would work for the most situations. Kennebec narrowed the vendors down to Seco and another company.
"We wanted to upgrade," Owen said, "but, we didn't have a preference for any particular company. We wanted a good, consistent, standard solution."
Presenting a Challenge
Facing a persistent problem on the through-coolant tooling machines, Smith told Daniels, "If you can make this particular operation work, then I'm changing to Seco."
The part causing problems was a major component of a seven-part assembly for the semiconductor industry, of which Kennebec produced about 700 assemblies per year. Made of heat-treated 17-4 stainless steel, the raw stock arrived as a 4" diameter bar that is cut to about 8.5". Operations then included rough turning, finish turning, and drilling. Kennebec wanted to reduce the cycle time, which would impact manpower and tooling costs.
"Our turning operations were standard," Smith said. "It was drilling that took a long time. The tolerance on the internal bore, which is almost a 5" deep hole, was tight and we had to be consistent."
"We had problems with tool life," Owen said. "Chips were wrapping around the drill and either destroying the drill, or scrapping the part, or doing both. We might get five parts from one insert and then six or eight from another."
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Kennebec tried to work through the problem, but they had to slow the process to clean out the chips, which reduced productivity.
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Seco's Daniels suggested Kennebec try a Perfomax 1.187" diameter, 5?D for the operation. Where most suppliers run the same insert for customer convenience, Seco's Perfomax drill can use two different insert grades. The tougher grade is located in the inboard position, and the more wear-resistant grade in the periphery pocket. Unlike other indexable drills, Perfomax relies upon square inserts for a strong 90[degrees] corner and the economy of four cutting edges. The inserts also have advanced chip breaking.
Nailed It
"The operation was pretty much nailed as soon as we tried it," Owen said. "Bryan Daniels suggested the feeds and speeds, and we had no problems. He worked with us and optimized the parameters until we got a good average of parts per insert."
The Perfomax ended up producing about 20 parts per edge, which was about three times better tool life than the other drill. The drill cycle time was reduced from 1.21 to 0.53 seconds.
"However," adds Smith, "including the fact that we were changing tools every five to eight parts, then we're reducing cycle time a lot more than the figures show."
While the Seco inserts cost more than the competitive drill inserts, the increased tool life reduced the comparative cost by $1.05 per produced part.
"We have three different assemblies similar to this one," adds Owen. "We started with this one, but we are now using the Perfomax on all the different diameters."
Kennebec made an across-the-board switch to Perfomax for almost all of its standard drilling applications. The switch worked so well that the shop gave Daniels a chance to prove the worth of Seco's products in other areas. The company is working on an aerospace project consisting of 8,000 pieces with a tight delivery schedule. It is running on a multi-tasking machine tool and requires a combination of turning and milling operations.
"After Daniels' help with this last process, along with the success we achieved, we will certainly at least give Seco a try," Owen said. Seco Tools
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