Located in Wichita, Kansas, Perfekta specializes in custom, precision aerospace manufacturing. It offers customers diverse capabilities in milling, trimming, forming, bending and assembly solutions. For the company's production needs, high-speed machining has always seemed like an attractive option. Making the transition to high-speed machining from traditional machining performed on a vertical machining center was intimidating for the small company.

"We made an analysis on the type of parts we were machining in our current shop and computed the average run time. We discovered that for the 100 part numbers we examined, their run times were anywhere from an hour and a half to three hours machined the conventional way," says Nicholas Guerra, manufacturing engineer for Perfekta. Perfekta then analyzed the machining time to produce these parts using high-speed machining and discovered the potential for a dramatic improvement in machining time. Guerra added, "We decided we had to change."

The company also analyzed their setup time and found dramatic savings were possible utilizing a managed cell over traditional stand-alone machining centers. The cell minimizes setup time and controls production, ensuring the parts are produced when they are needed.

For its first horizontal machining center, Perfekta chose the A88E from Makino with the MMC pallet handling system. The Makino system has the Super Geometric Intelligence™ (SGI) control feature, which permits much higher feedrates with measurably higher accuracy and shorter total cycle times.

"Our new Makino Machining Complex (MMC) with the Model B2 software cell controller provides us with programming characteristics that maximize production output while it effectively monitors multi-machine production requirements," Guerra says. "As we complete transition of parts to the cell, we expect to eliminate over 200 setups."

"We have an aluminum hog-out that we manufacture for Raytheon Aircraft that was taking us two hours and twenty minutes each to produce. Now we machine the part complete on a horizontal machining center (HMC), and the whole process takes 27 minutes. We can already see the dramatic improvement; it is happening."

In addition to paying for itself, the machine promises to open up new opportunities for Perfekta. "This new MMC technology with B2 Controller provides us with tremendous potential. It will really open up our shop capacity and our ability to easily expand in the future. We are seeing opportunities from our customers that we have never seen before because of this Makino equipment. They are very excited about the capabilities and possibilities we can now offer them, and we are optimistic."

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