Justifying Technology for your shop

In the battle for survival and profitability in production shops or small machine shops, the latest technology is more important than ever. It allows shops to do more with less direct labor, produces more consistent quality parts and reduces the cost per piece even for one piece runs.

Still, some shops, accustomed to the 'way they've always done it' may feel old technology will see them through. It won't anymore in this global market. Understanding how to profitably invest in new technology is more important then ever if you want to be competitive or even stay in business. Buying new technology is a strategic decision to assure the future competitiveness of your company.

What’s the process for new technology?

Measurable:

• Productivity

• Reduced set-up

• Improve runtime

• Improve throughput

• Reduce Scrap

• Reduce Job setup cost

Intangible benefits:

• Quality

• Accuracy

• Flexibility

Cost of not changing

• Lower efficiencies

• Longer than planned set-up times

• Requires vanishing skills

• Requires “tweaking” to successfully run good parts

• Produces scrap parts, hurting efficiency, adding to material cost

There's more. However, this justification method does not consider important technical and strategic aspects for maintaining competitiveness. Quality for instance is one of today's top priorities for end-users.

Things that are surprisingly overlooked by companies:

· Allowing CNC operators to manually program their CNC machines. This is very costly in several ways even with “our simple parts”. Potential typing error, and the operator has to cautiously step through the first part run off to allow for any mistakes.

· Operators need to leave their machine to go get the CNC code from another location like a floppy disk or a USB device (yes, there are companies still doing this)

· Operators select their own tooling for their programs so there is no consistency across the shop.

· What really happens once the CNC operator receives his next job. Do you have a way to monitor cycle time, setup time, idle time, etc.? How are you currently tracking these to be more efficient?

Payback. Doing a Return on Investment analysis can help you to make a good decision. The ROI indicates how the investment will impact a company's cash flow, based upon the revenues and expenses associated with the project.

Are you ready to make the change?

Adaptive Technology Solutions has re-engineered the concept of CAM/Shop Floor Management service and support for busy manufacturing companies. We provide a full range of services that fill the gaps in your manufacturing operation. Our goal is to make our customers the most successful CAM/Shop Floor Automation users possible.

Adaptive Technology Solutions 3365 Dayton Xenia Rd. Beavercreek, Ohio 45432