Mazak Corp.

Like many machine tool builders, Mazak touts the flexibility and efficiency of its equipment as aids to adopting “lean” manufacturing processes. However, in this case, this isn’t just a sales pitch.

 The Megaturn Nexus 900 is a new generation CNC vertical turning center that is suited for heavy-duty cutting of large cast iron and steel workpieces found in the construction machinery, industrial machinery and jet engine industries. 

Mazak (Florence, Kentucky) has started construction on a new facility to house its Southwest Technology Center & Regional Headquarters in Houston, Texas.

The Integrex j-Series performs four-axis simultaneous machining with five-axis tool tip positioning.

Custom engineered workholding fixtures are key to the effectiveness of an unusual Automated Production System (APS) recently installed at Kurt Manufacturing. It helps that one of this company’s specialties is custom engineered workholding fixtures.

Mazak’s slant-turn Nexus 550M CNC turning center is designed for large parts such as oil field pipes, pipeline control valves, turbine wheels, aircraft and off-road parts.

Kennametal (Latrobe, Pennsylvania) and Mazak (Florence, Kentucky) will showcase the latest developments in multi-tasking machine tools and cutting tools for aerospace industry manufacturers.

Mazak’s Quick Turn Smart series of two-axis lathes is designed for high-productivity job shop environments.

Mazak’s Nexus VCN 700D/40-II HS VMC is designed to maximize efficiency in high speed machining operations.

Mazak (Florence, Kentucky) has announced a two-day R3 event at its Midwest Technology Center in Schaumburg, Illinois.

Video shows a multitasking machine milling a turbine blade in a cycle that few machining centers could replicate.

Moving from hydraulic to magnetic fixtures enabled this shop to reduce setup time, improve rigidity and eliminate manual operations. As a result, productivity doubled.

Manual loading of heavy housings was this manufacturer’s prime bottleneck. It had limited experience with automated cells, but decided to install a big one. A look at the manufacturer’s $13 million cell reveals an intriguing layout and blend of technologies.

Racecar drivers need high-performance components to win races, but manufacturing those components requires speed, too. An automated pallet changer helped this shop boost production not only for its auto customers, but also for customers in aerospace, medical and other industries.

Mazak’s Hyper Quadrex200MSY features two high-performance spindles and upper and lower turrets to target balanced cutting for medium- to high-volume unattended applications.

To remain competitive, manufacturers continually strive for shorter production lead times and reduced inventory, a trend that makes efficient equipment utilization important to the bottom line.

A specially designed tooling package for honing operations, along with live, on-board gaging, allows critical honing operations to move to HMCs, thereby eliminating several separate steps on multiple dedicated machines. 

Mazak’s Integrex e-1060V/8 II multitasking center provides full turning and milling capabilities. The milling spindle tilts to 150 degrees for both horizontal and vertical machining operations, including angle boring and milling on multiple faces.

Machine tool builder Mazak says more than 1,400 manufacturers from North and Central America attended its “Your Manufacturing Future? Refocus, Rediscover and Reinvent” event, which recently took place at its Florence, Kentucky headquarters. Also known as “R3,” the 3-day event introduced new technology and strategies designed to help American manufacturers achieve success.

Machine tool builder Mazak (Florence, Kentucky) says the establishment of its new World Research & Development center could reduce design-to-market time by three to five months for new products and units, including assembly, testing and evaluation. The center occupies 73,000 square feet of a new 167,000-square-foot facility in Oguchi, Japan.

Mazak (Florence, Kentucky) has launched its Virtual Technology Center (VTC), an online resource designed to bring the latest advancements in machining technology, product development, training, service and support to customers’ fingertips. The VTC features machine demonstrations, applications training, online Q&A sessions with company president Brian Papke and MazakTV, an online resource with channels for industry segment content, engineering insights and machine information.

Machine tool builder Mazak will host “Your Manufacturing Future? Refocus, Rediscover and Reinvent” (R3), a three-day event designed to help customers evaluate their positions in the marketplace and formulate plans to improve competitiveness as the economy rebounds. Scheduled for September 15-17 at the company’s National Technology Center in Florence, Kentucky, R3 will serve as the debut for more than a dozen machine tools incorporating new technologies.

This shop involves all of its employees in the daily exercise of analyzing just where time is being spent.

This company is embracing high-performance tooling on its turning centers. The "sticker shock" is no reason not to do this. In one case, though, the shop found a way to limit the cost of the tool and increase productivity at the same time.

Mazak’s versatile VTC-200G VMC is designed for part production of long, heavy workpieces. The 154.

Machine tool builder Mazak says it recently completed a significant expansion in size and capabilities at its manufacturing facility in Florence, Kentucky. In addition to adding 50,000 square feet of floor space to the 543,000-square-foot campus, the company has installed two Versatech V100N multiple-surface, double-column, five-axis machining centers. With a spindle head that can be configured for operation in the horizontal or vertical positions or any angle in between, these machines are said to be especially useful for large workpieces.

The i-150 multitasking machining center is said to combine versatility and accuracy for manufacturing small, complex components from barstock. The machine features a front-mounted, 36-tool changer; a single, horizontal main spindle with15 hp that is capable of speeds as fast as 5,000 rpm; and a C-axis control. The 6" through-hole chuck can accommodate bars as large as 2.

Implementing advanced manufacturing cells can help a shop improve productivity, but the cells themselves may be only part of the solution. That’s the case at Wilcox Industries, which combined advanced manufacturing capabilities of automated machining with the flexibility of Mastercam CAD/CAM software to keep up with continuing growth.

Shops that serve medical instrument and implant manufacturers face special challenges. Their customers typically want precisely machined parts plus the extras such as finishing, marking, assembly and expert handling of the regulatory paperwork. That’s why this shop is focused on providing more than just the machining.

 Mazak Corporation has established Mazak Automation Systems, a new department at its North American headquarters in Florence, Kentucky. The company says the department will offer a comprehensive range of automation solutions and enable customers to benefit from the company's experience in manufacturing and machining technologies. Systems include process and software engineering, project management, application support, customer support and customer training.

This Florence, Kentucky-based machine tool builder uses its own equipment to produce machine tools. Here’s how they succeed at big-part machining on a large five-axis machining center.

Mazak’s HCN 8800-II HMC is built to meet the needs of high productivity for large parts production. It offers a 60-tool storage magazine and a 10,000-rpm, 50-hp integrated spindle/motor generating as much as 900-foot-pounds (1,218-Nm) of torque. Options include 8,000-rpm/50-hp and 16,000-rpm/50-hp spindles. The mac

The two divisions within this business machine complex parts for the medical and aerospace industries. So in that sense they’re shops. However, in order to grow with their customers, they realized they had to be more than just providers of good parts. They needed to serve as their customers’ manufacturing partners.

The Integrex i-150 shows how a multitasking machine for small precision parts can combine done-in-one process with a compact structure to reduce floor space requirements. Most multitasking machines for parts of this size use a second spindle for endworking of parts after cutoff. This machine uses a swing-away workholding device instead.

Despite hitting production goals, this shop had trouble meeting customer cost targets. It needed further automation. After purchasing Fanuc robots to service its flexible manufacturing system (FMS), the company has reduced costs enough to pay back its investment.

According to manufacturer Mazak, the Integrex i-150 provides enhanced, “done-in-one” processing for small, accurate and complex parts. With its compact footprint, the center is suited for medical appliance manufacturers and high-precision component machining involving round, square or angular features. Also, simultaneous five-axis surfacing is possible with minimum operator intervention, the company says.

Lean practices are not just for predictable production. Here are the common-sense ways this low-volume job shop has implemented a leaner process.

Instead of NC programs that are dedicated to particular parts and machines, this plant now uses macro programs that react to geometric variations across broad part families. The plant wrote these macros itself, and the return on this investment has been dramatically greater productivity.

Although CAM programming had been automated for many years within the Morton Grove, Illinois, facility of the John Crane Inc. (JCI) Seals Division, the shop here found a way to make the process even more efficient. It found a way to get new, complex, multi-axis turning centers into production quickly, and to maximize the productivity of these CNC machine tools in cellular manufacturing.

This job shop relies on its CNC programming software to unlock the productivity of its multi-axis, multi-tasking machine tools and CNC Swiss-type machines.

Holding 0.001-inch tolerances while machining and removing large amounts of material from a brass part is a challenging task when the job is run at 10,000 revolutions per minute with feed rate of 240 inches per minute.

A machine shop in a new cancer treatment center produces components to precisely guide proton radiation to eliminate its target—cancerous tumors.

This complex milling operation is performed effectively on a machine that does turning.

The Future of Machining - 2005 Add vision systems to robots, and fundamental aspects of the process deserve a second look.

Cla-Val is a 65-year-old manufacturer that designs and produces valves for fire protection, water works, aviation, ground fueling, marine, industrial waste and numerous other applications. Its valve sizes range from 3/8 inch to 24 inches. Most valve components are produced from precision castings delivered from its in-house foundry.

A stable customer relationship gave this shop the chance to fundamentally change its equipment.

Rethinking the mold machining process leads to concepts worth considering, even for applications outside mold making.

Using a new software system, custom 3D fixtures can be generated automatically. The software creates 2D fixture components that can be laser cut and assembled for a fraction of the cost and in significantly less time than other methods.

New models in the Mazak family expand the concept.

This company sees knowledge to be a vital production resource. Capturing and sharing information are now routine functions on the shop floor. Here are lessons the company learned.

This shop expedites 3D milling work by reducing its dependence on employees for all of the information-related tasks that occur before the machining center can start to cut.

A manufacturer of hermetic compressors proves out a new strategy based on multi-process machining.

Most of this company's work is machined to tight tolerances and super-high finishes. It builds, assembles, tests and then ships a complete product. The many multi-faceted parts being machined typically required several setups on different machines, often with cumbersome pallet and indexing devices.

A manufacturer of metal stampings bridges the gap between generations of hardware and software.

Toronto aerospace shops improve productivity with faster five-axis machining centers.

Imagine a single cutting toolholder that can be used to perform 12 distinct metalcutting operations without a tool change. That's the concept behind a new cutting tool innovation designed and built by Mazak.

In recent years, technological trends have taken the form of multi-process machines with sophisticated monitoring and control systems. The ultimate purpose of marrying advanced hardware and software is to achieve a fully automated and more reliable manufacturing process.

The complex shapes of the iron castings that make up the housings for this company's flow meters require machining on multiple faces. The castings undergo various types of machining operations, from drilling to helical thread milling.

One machine shop owner in old New England, not far from where Paul Revere made his famous ride, saw a tight labor market as a call to revolutionize his company.

Multi-tasking is a word typically associated with the consequences of ever-changing human job descriptions. For the people at Mazak Corporation, however, the word applies equally to metalworking machines.

Multitasking machines capable of completely machining complex, milled and turned parts in a single setup are powering this Chicago-area job shop's growth.

Some shops would measure a productivity improvement in terms of the extra capacity freed up on a given machine tool. Texas Arai measures its productivity gains in terms of the number of machines it no longer needs.

Thousands of contract manufacturing shops across North America that produce commodity parts such as shafts, arbors, bearing races, gear splines, and so on, have one problem in common: how to do it faster and less expensively.

This Canadian mold making shop, Unique Mould Makers, is aptly named. Virtually every multi-cavity injection mold set made for the manufacture of caps, closures, vials and other packaging applications is indeed unique. One might think that automation and standardization would not be of interest to such a shop. Think again!

Mazatrol Fusion 640 is the name for a new machine control recently introduced by Mazak Corp. (Florence, Kentucky). The control is available on the company's full line of machine tools, including horizontal and vertical machining centers, turning centers and multi-tasking machines.

The seventh key is that the profits often come later.

This company was growing at a rate of 25 to 40 percent per year since 1990 and needed to find a better way to produce turned parts. Now it produces from 40,000 to 60,000 parts per week.

Most shops are looking to reduce throughput time. One sensible method is to eliminate multiple part handlings and work-in-process time. Advances in machine tool capability and programmability enable more job shops and general-purpose manufacturers to take advantage of turn/mill machines. Here's a look at the state-of-the-art.

By adding an advanced multi-pallet HMC to their equipment, this company now has the ability to pursue work that it would never have been able to bid on before because of the machine's unmanned manufacturing capabilities and high productivity.

Read how the Arbor Department of this major manufacturer greatly reduced set-up time to deal with increased capacity.

Many job shops start in a garage with a used mill and a manual lathe. The owners of this Utah job shop took a different tack. Along the way to a very successful business, they've debunked a bunch of myths commonly held about job shops.

Many people think flexible machining cells are for high production, but this shop finds just the opposite. Here's how they've grown their cell to meet the needs of their work.

Mazak Opens National Technology Center

One machine shop owner in old New England, not far from where Paul Revere made his famous ride, saw a tight labor market as a call to revolutionize his company.

This California shop doesn't just consolidate operations, it consolidates machines--using a lathe that doubles as a cutoff saw and machining center.

Many shops associate five-axis machining with complexity. While the five-axis process can and does produce some amazingly complex workpieces, there are real advantages in applying it to less severe geometries. Here's how one midwestern job shop is using a two-machine, five-axis manufacturing cell to simplify part production.

A fourth axis, in this case a 'Y' axis, is said to come close to transforming this machining center into an almost universal metalcutting machine tool.

VIDEO. For this valve maker, a part that might have been machined in one setup on a multitasking machine tool is instead machined with greater throughput using a series of simpler machines. Company personnel explain.

To mill thin walls in aluminum using fast light cuts, machine on alternating sides of the wall all the way down, jumping the wall with each new pass.

This video demonstrates hole making. Hole making often involves sequential operations such as drill-then-tap. Combination tools that perform these operations simultaneously can eliminate tool changes, saving cycle time. Many combination tools call for helical interpolation. The video shows the same series of hole