Radical Departures talked with Dr. Scott Smith, researcher and professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte (UNCC). Dr. Smith and his colleagues at the University of North Carolina have been conducting research with Makino's A55 DELTA high-speed machining center for about three years. The studies they have conducted on the A55 DELTA have been geared toward improving the utilization of the machining center for greater productivity and maximized end results.

The thinking behind their research is simple, as Dr. Smith explains: "If you know exactly what a machine can do, then you can do a better job writing the part program." Quite simply put, the work that Dr. Smith and his colleagues are doing helps end users take the guesswork out of program writing.

For example, Smith says his group conducts cutting tests for different tools to determine which speed is optimal for each, and to determine the kind of depths of cut they can achieve. Using that information, the researchers at UNCC have built a database that lists the findings for each tool. Now, when they write the part program, they have the database as a reference point. This process results in part programs that work right the first time and that fully utilize the machine's capabilities.

According to Smith, there are three possible scenarios for machining center users. In the best case scenario, "You have used measurements or cutting tests, you know what each tool on your machine can do very well, and you've shared that information with the programmers so that they use that information to respect the limits when writing the program." The second possibility, according to Smith, is less positive. In this scenario, "You get into chatter problems every day because you are pushing the envelope and often end up outside of it because you do not know the application's limitations."

A third scenario, Smith says, occurs when users do not realize the full potential of their machine and its tools. "Even if your machine is running 24-hours a day, you may be underutilizing it if it is not making the kind of cuts that it could." Dr. Smith approximates that most users of machine tools fall into this last category. "They may struggle because they do not know exactly what they can do so much so that, when they eventually do get a part program to work, they are so happy just to have it working that they do not touch anything else."

This sort of "ignorant bliss" can spell lost time in machining. For instance, if a machine is making a cut .25 inch deep that could be made .50 inch deep, the program takes twice as long to run and the machine is under-used by a factor of two. And that lost time is valuable in today's high-speed machining environment.

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