Published 11/21/2012

Mori Seiki Manufacturing Facility Opens in Davis

A ribbon-cutting ceremony marked the opening of Mori Seiki Manufacturing, a recently completed machine tool factory in Davis, California. The factory, described as a $50-million state-of-the-art manufacturing facility, is producing Mori Seiki NHX4000, NHX5000 and NHX5500 machines. The plant will also serve as a showplace of advanced manufacturing and automation.

Automation

Mark Albert

Editor Emeritus, Modern Machine Shop

Mori Seiki Manufacturing is the company’s first manufacturing plant in America.

On November 7 a ribbon-cutting ceremony marked the opening of Mori Seiki Manufacturing, a recently completed machine tool factory in Davis, California. The factory, described as a $50-million state-of-the-art manufacturing facility, is producing Mori Seiki NHX4000, NHX5000 and NHX5500 machines. The plant will also serve as a showplace of advanced, sustainable manufacturing and automation. The factory is a first for the company in America.

In his comments at the ceremony, Dr. Masahiko Mori, president of Mori Seiki Co., Ltd. and a member of the Supervisory Board of Gildemeister AG, described the new factory as a resource not only for manufacturers seeking horizontal machining centers, but also as a collaborative partner for general manufacturing concerns, such as factory automation. Dr. Mori used the occasion to note that the investment represented by this new plant projects continuing prosperity and support for the U.S. manufacturing sector.

The new factory is adjacent to the company’s Digital Technology Laboratory (DTL), an R&D center that collaborates with Mori Seiki Japan on a 24‐hour work cycle to support global manufacturing solutions. DTL employs more then 80 staff members. The factory and R&D center comprise a combined 291,000 square feet spread over 19.2 acres in Davis, not far from Sacramento. Eight additional acres are reserved for future expansion at this site.

Mori Seiki NHX4000, NHX5000 and NHX5500 machines are being built in the new factory, with column and medium part machining on three NHX10000 machines installed with a linear pallet pool (LPP) system that accommodates 60 pallets. Two NH6300 machines with 40 pallets are dedicated to machining pallets and small castings.

The large machining area is equipped with two Toshiba MPC‐B series five‐face, high‐performance machines. This cell is controlled by DTL’s own LPS III software and is able to produce large NHX series castings, which are cleaned by air-blow robots after machining to remove chips and debris from all drilled and tapped holes. The castings come from the same foundry as the NHX machines produced at factories in Japan.

A prepared statement from the company notes that more than 40 percent of the components for the machines assembled in Davis are produced domestically, with spindles and ball screws being imported from Mori Seiki Japan. Domestic content will continue to increase in the future, as additional suppliers are secured, the statement says.

To maintain economic and environmental standards, the factory performs dry and minimum quantity lubricant (MQL) machining only, with chip evacuation performed by a centralized vacuum system. The building is temperature controlled throughout. Production started in July, 2012 and current capacity is stated to be 80 units per month.

Automation such as this robotic system serving a machining cell of three NHX10000 machines is characteristic of the advanced manufacturing in place at Mori Seiki Manufacturing.