Know your options; After it took advantage of a new machine's high-speed option, a medical parts manufacturer saw immediate results.

Just as there is no profit in missed opportunities, there are also no advantages in neglecting the abilities of new equipment. Advanced capabilities of a top-of-the-line machine don't profit the owners if its potentialities are not being used to capacity. That's why it's important to learn to use all of the bells and whistles when putting a new purchase into production. The expanded capabilities can save time and money.

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KBK Tool & Mfg., Skokie, IL, specializes in CNC milling and turning in almost any material. About 70 percent of the company's machined parts go into medical diagnostic equipment and surgical instruments.

"Those customers expect and require close tolerances and ultra-precision parts. They are uncompromising," Ken Hedeen, owner of KBK, said. "We keep them happy with parts produced on the Bridgeport 760 [XP.sub.3] machine."

With its high-speed option, the vertical machining center from Bridgeport, Elmira, NY, a division of Hardinge, Inc., has improved KBK's operation by decreasing cycle times, thereby providing a faster turnaround for its customers.

Surprising Speeds

"When I began looking for a machining center I wasn't aware that Bridgeport had high-end solutions," Hedeen said. "When I read the company's product brochure I was impressed by the specifications. That's what really got me interested. I figured no one would put those capabilities in writing if the machines couldn't perform them."

After purchase, KBK put it to immediate use. But, the machine's fast setup left the company unaware of its high-speed options until Kyle Klaver, an applications engineer from Bridgeport, showed KBK the parts it was producing could be made at much faster feed rates, within the same tolerance bandwidth.

"Klaver blew us away," Hedeen said. "We'd been interpolating at 6 ipm, that shot up to 30 ipm. What really got our attention were cycle times, they dropped by one-third."

KBK was making aluminum parts with cycle times of 45 to 50 minutes. By making full use of the Bridgeport's capabilities, times were cut by 30 percent.

Crucial Turnaround

Hedeen said that customers aren't willing to wait two weeks for order fulfillment and with the Bridgeport added to KBK's machine arsenal, they don't have to. The higher-end technology lets the company turn jobs faster, with more efficiency.

"We often use fixture plates on the machine, especially if we know we're going to be repeating the job," he said. "With repeat work, we throw on the fixture, call up the program, and go."

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Hedeen said he likes the 30-tool, side-mounted, swingarm automatic tool changer as well, because the operator can leave tools in the changer for repeat jobs, making setup time negligible--the tools are there, ready for use when the program is loaded in the control.

"A job that may have taken four to eight hours for programming and setup has been replaced by putting on a fixture plate and calling up the program. The difference is time-in-cut instead of idle time," Hedeen said.

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The other thing that Hedeen said he likes about the Bridgeport toolchanger is that it's mounted to a supported shoulder on the machine's column, engineered to support its weight. This eliminates vibration transfer into the cutter while the tool changer is rotating.

Hitting Unthinkable Tolerances

After acquiring the Bridgeport, KBK acquired a Zeiss CMM. The company uses it to certify its products to provide traceability for the parts it makes for the medical and aerospace industries.

"It's exciting to run a new part on the Bridgeport and put it in the CMM," Hedeen said. "We just look at each other and say, 'Wow,' because the part's right on. We're hitting tolerances of 0.0005", total--not plus or minus--and we hit 0.0003" as well.

"My programmer came to me and said he's holding true position of 0.001" and the first programmed part came out perfect. He didn't have to make any adjustments, and he'd never been able to do that in his years of programming experience," Hedeen said.

KBK is able to go after jobs it couldn't before learning to ring the machine's bells and blow its whistles. Bridgeport

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