Saving time, money, and frustration

An Aero Components part being verified on the company’s coordinate measuring machine (CMM).Aero Components is an advanced contract-machining firm that builds complex and precision parts for the aerospace, medical, semi-conductor, and oil-field industries. It is also the place where machinist Keith Woodhouse has taken cinematic analogy and applied it to the real world.

At Aero, he has learned to maximize the company’s existing inventory – its machine-tool lineup and ESPRIT computer-aided-manufacturing (CAM) software – to save countless hours, and even days, of production time.

Woodhouse’s challenge began in 2008 with Aero’s acquisition of a Mazak Vortex 5-axis machine tools. While the machine tool is made for fast and efficient machining, the task of inspecting the large parts it produced was a tricky one.

Prior to the introduction of the Mazak Vortex, it was standard practice at the company to use a coordinate measuring machine (CMM) to check tolerances of machined parts against corresponding computer-aided-design (CAD) models. “The computer knows what the shapes and sizes are supposed to be, and the CMM verifies that the part is within tolerance,” Woodhouse says.

In a nutshell, CMMs use touch probes to inspect part accuracy by taking measurements in X, Y, and Z axis and comparing them to the corresponding CAD model. At Aero, in addition to a final inspection performed once parts were fully machined, they were checked using a CMM at several points throughout the machining process.

Though Woodhouse continued inspecting parts on Aero’s existing CMM following the addition of the Mazak Vortex, the task had become grossly time-consuming and tedious due to the large size of the parts produced on the Vortex – parts such as those for the new F-35 joint-strike fighter.

Constant back-and-forth between the Vortex and the CMM, which was capable of inspecting just one area of a large part at a time, added up to dead machine time for both tools. It would often take hours, and sometimes even days, to machine and inspect a part, and 5-axis part features could only be inspected on a CMM to the CAD model.

Woodhouse had to come up with a plan B that had to include a way to verify parts every step of the way – as they were being machined – so Woodhouse did his homework.

Because buying a new CMM for $75,000 to $100,000 was simply out of the question, he considered a portable CMM arm complete with software at a price tag of about $45,000. However, because it offered no improvements in accuracy over the existing procedure, the arm was a mediocre and pricey option.

With pricey options eliminated, thinking about how the company could capitalize on what it already had proved to be the charm; what Aero already had was a Mazak Vortex machine tool and ESPRIT CAM.

“I realized that ESPRIT had a CMM tool feature,” Woodhouse says. “I remembered seeing it, but I had never checked it out.”

Upon closer inspection, Woodhouse determined that the CMM tool was a feature they could use to maximize the machine tool, get more out of the software, and think smarter than any machine by figuring out how to make existing inventory work better than it ever had.
 

(Left) An ESPRIT simulation displays 15 points to be probed. (Right) An Aero Components milling part is simulated in ESPRIT.

Aero first purchased Renishaw’s Inspection Plus macros for $1,076 to generate programs for part inspections. Woodhouse then took the X, Y, Z, I, J, and K data in the file created by ESPRIT and fed it into an application designed by the team at Aero.

“It takes the X, Y, and Z points and the I, J, K vector and creates a program using the probing macros that I can put into the machine to inspect parts like a CMM. Basically, we have a great, big CMM now.”

What is more, the Vortex is not the only great, big CMM that the company now has. “Because the probing macros are numbered the same for different controls, I can use the same program on any of our Fanuc or Mazak/Mitsubishi mills or Integrex machines with only minor changes at the beginning and end of the code,” Woodhouse explains.

Within 30 minutes, Woodhouse can now create a program that allows him to inspect parts on the machine and generate fairly complex reports on part integrity in relation to design intent.

“It is a huge time saver and it keeps the machine up and running,” he states.

Though the company continues to use its CMM machine to verify finished parts, the ability to operate from the machine tool has saved hours upon hours of production time.

“I always use ESPRIT on really complex parts,” Woodhouse says. “There are parts that would be impossible to program without ESPRIT.”

Still, despite the powerful machine tools and the software that drives them, it took a man to pull the whole thing off. To outsmart a challenge, there are times when it takes the willingness to really look at what is right in front of you in ways that you had not imagined. That is one thing that a machine will never do.
 

DP Technology
Camarillo, CA
dptechnology.com

Mazak Corp.
Florence, KY
mazakusa.com

Aero Components
Oklahoma City, OK
aerocomponentsok.com