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New CNC brings open-road performance to job shops A recent survey of job shops revealed that in the coming months, many owners and managers intend to evaluate new machine tool investment options. A top consideration will be easier-to-use CNC.
According to a survey conducted in April by Centrifuge Brand Marketing, 70 percent of job shops said that their next machine investment will be based on long-term needs regardless of delivery time, versus accepting a machine that is less optimal yet immediately available out of dealer stock. A particular expectation was for more open and easier-to-use CNC, as 81 percent said they wanted faster programming and setups for increased capacity.* One control option, especially designed for greater simplicity and performance, is the new Sinumerik 828D CNC from Siemens. Globally, over a dozen machine tool builders are integrating the control into their latest machine designs, with availability in the U.S. market expected to grow in the coming months. For many years, Siemens has been associated with five-axis CNC for aerospace and other high-end machine control applications. The company’s reputation for more advanced CNC has kept the brand on the periphery of mainstream job shop awareness, while gaining preference among those shops inclined to live on the edge, for reasons of market exploration or creative freedom. Orange County Choppers, Inc. is one such machine tool job shop.
*S urvey conducted online March and April of 2010. A total of 188 machine tool professionals participated. Survey was conducted by Centrifuge Brand Marketing, Inc. and sponsored by Siemens Industry, Inc. For a summary of the survey, visit: www.usa.siemens.com/cnc.
SINUMERIK Answers for industry.
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Revving up for increased performance Orange County Choppers, Inc. (OCC), has built a reputation for advanced metal cutting. An appeal of the American Chopper television series is the shop’s creative edge, as exemplified by OCC’s popular water jet cutting machine. Less known is the fact that the “water jet” often featured on the show is a Flow machine controlled by a Siemens Sinumerik 840D CNC.
increased simplicity and performance by way of improved machine tool HMI. As CNC technology goes forward, he anticipates control interfaces will by necessity become more dynamic, yet easier to use and adaptable from machineto-machine. He predicts that the new Siemens Sinumerik 828D CNC’s dominant attraction will be its ease-of-use.
“Having used Siemens before, it was great to have that familiarity when I came to Orange County Choppers,” says OCC’s Lead Engineer, Jim Quinn. “In the last three years, the five-axis Siemens control has let us do some amazing 3-D work for our customers.”
“Having a Siemens control on our five-axis machine and seeing how easy it sets up, it will be great to see that ease-of-use on other pieces of equipment,” Quinn says. “That’s one of the things we like about Siemens coming into more job shops. They are not resting on their five-axis laurels. Siemens has a commitment to progress and like us, they keep upgrading their products.”
Quinn says he understands the growing need among American job shops for
Jim Quinn, Lead Engineer at Orange County Chopper, Inc., sets up the Siemens Sinumerik 840D CNC onboard the shop’s Flow water jet cutting machine.
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Romi breaks the machine tool mold Romi Machine Tools, Ltd. was the first machine tool builder to integrate the new Siemens Sinumerik 828D control in the United States. Jody Michaels, Application and Engineering Manager for Romi, says he has been looking for a CNC edge to evolve the company’s brand identity in the U.S. and the Siemens Sinumerik 828D CNC fits the bill. According to Michaels, the new mid-range control brings a unique, dual capability to Romi’s new D800AP vertical milling center. “Romi has a reputation for building a very stable, strong machine,” Michaels explains. “But in the past, we could never get into the mold type job shops, because the controls available were too difficult to integrate. The Siemens 828D control opens up new markets for us. With it, our new machine can produce jobs that are either simple or complex. It’s very easy to program on the machine using the control’s graphical interface, without using g-codes. At the same time, you have the capability to upload more complex programs to the control from CAD/CAM, including all kinds of legacy brand G-code programs.”
»The Romi D800 is a next-generation machine, controlled by a next-generation CNC.« Jody Michaels, Application and Engineering Manager, Romi Machine Tools
Michaels says that in order to move forward, job shops need greater flexibility, ease-ofuse and onboard programming. Even if an owner does not want to pursue such work as mold and die, it’s a question of machine flexibility. “For example, a common problem for job shops is getting backlogged at the programming stage,” Michaels says. “With the new Siemens control, many standard jobs can be easily programmed right at the machine. This can save two days of waiting for a programmer. It makes your operation that much more efficient on more standard jobs. The operator can see a graphic of what he’s doing, and he feels confident about cutting correctly. G-code will not go away, it’s just that a job shop needs the flexibility to use both.” The fact that Romi’s new D800AP was purchased by a technical college is fitting, Michaels notes. “It’s a next-generation machine, controlled by a next-generation CNC.”
Jody Michaels, Romi’s Application and Engineering Manager, was instrumental in bringing the new Siemens Sinumerik 828D CNC aboard the company’s new D800AP vertical milling machine, introducing the control to the U.S. market.
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A lesson in next-generation CNC “The installation of the new Romi machine in our school was a first in many ways,” says Jim Hokenson, CNC instructor at the Moraine Park Technical College in West Bend, Wisconsin. “It was Romi’s first D800AP machine installed in North America and it was Siemens first 828D CNC installation here, and I’m not kidding you, our students were cutting parts on it the very next day.” Such an accelerated learning curve is unusual, Hokenson says, especially since the school had three weeks left in the semester and the students had become familiar with the prevailing job shop CNC platforms being taught. “The ROMI machine was new to us,” Hokenson recalls, “yet the students really took to it, because of the improved Siemens HMI and the enhanced performance attributes of the machine. Our classrooms prepare students for a range of job shop
challenges. We teach standard short run projects and more complex 3-D CAD/CAM jobs. The machine supports both approaches, with zero ramp-up on the learning curve. You can program at the control or import a program on a USB.” Hokenson says an example of the machine’s innovative edge is its ability to report an alarm condition as an SMS message. In the event of an alarm, the Siemens control can send a text message to your mobile phone and even tell you what may have caused that alarm. ‘It has become clear in our classroom, that the Siemens 828D control can increase the performance of people,” Hokenson concludes. “Even when students are programming off of a basic two-D or twoand-a-half-D part print, they are able to program easier and faster than when they use our other controls. It’s just a more advanced job shop control.”
CNC instructor Jim Hokenson says students learn more quickly when they use the school’s new Romi D800AP machine with the Siemens.
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Next generation CNC: Fryer Machine Systems plans to incorporate the new Siemens Sinumerik 828D CNC ino the company’s new machine designs, says company President, Larry Fryer.
Fryer keeps CNC on the front burner Fryer Machine Systems is a U.S. machine tool builder that has for many years marketed to the performance needs of both aerospace and job shop customers alike. The company now features a customized Siemens Sinumerik 840D CNC platform on its machines. Down the road, Fryer anticipates migrating to a customized 828D CNC platform, to provide next-generation HMI for customers. Larry Fryer, President and Founder of the company, says he saw the new 828D CNC at EMO last fall and was struck by the control’s unique HMI. “With the 828D, Siemens has given us two controls in one,” Fryer reports. “We have the new HMI that is intuitive and conversational, and at the same time we have a G-code capable control that can import G-code programs or allow G-code programming on the machine. We can edit as we need to, in G-code. Siemens has invented translators that
»The Sinumerik CNC is truly next-generation HMI for job shop control.« Lary Fryer, President, Fryer Machine Systems
allow the control to read other control G-codes. The 828D can import another control brand’s G-code, edit it and run it just like it was that brand’s program, only it’s now much easier to use. As a business owner, this makes life a lot easier, because I don’t need to retrain my people. And neither will our job shop customers.” Fryer summarizes that the new Siemens Sinumerik 828D CNC is an advanced version of HMI for job shop control. “It has new software on it and you can do many things with it,” he says. “It makes the control easier to use. It has better graphics to display the part you want to manufacture more clearly and consistently. The onboard programming cuts setup time for many standard jobs. It better integrates milling and turning operations in one product. It really is next-generation and we want to be part of that.”
Machine tool freedom As job shop owners and managers set out to evaluate their machine tool purchase options in the months to come, a majority say they will now pay careful attention to the controls that will drive their new investments. Orange County Chopper’s Joe Quinn sums up the challenge as being one of raised expectations around machine tool performance. “We try to one-up ourselves on every bike we make,” says Quinn. “What helps us do that is to stay on top of the technology and that means new CNC controls, new software and equipment. We’ll do whatever we can to offer our customers the best that technology can offer.” According to Quinn, Michaels, Hokenson and Fryer, job shops that expect more from their CNC will find that their new machines can take them wherever they want to go.
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