DMG / Mori Seiki USA, Inc.

The range of five-axis machining centers from the combined product line of these allied companies includes the Mori Seiki NMV1500 DCG for smaller workpieces (9.8" diameter workspace) and from DMG, the DMU 210 P DuoBlock for large gears or aircraft components weighing as much as 8 tons.

Hunt and Hunt’s president says adopting turn/mill machines was one of the most challenging endeavors his 55-year-old shop ever undertook. He also says it’s the best thing the shop could have done to become more efficient at contract work.

The 2010 edition of DP Technology’s Esprit World Conference attracted more than 200 end users, resellers, business partners and other members of the company’s CAM software community from around the world.

In the highly competitive athletic footwear market, moving from concept to design to production at breathtaking speed is imperative. Fast and efficient five-axis machining is a key accelerator in this process.

DMG / Mori Seiki USA has announced that this year’s Innovation Days will take place at the company’s headquarters and Chicago Technical Center May 24-26.Innovation Days 2010 marks the first joint event organized by DMG / Mori Seiki USA under the partnership that began last month.

This shop sees no long-term threat in the reality of lower prices. Machine tool investments related to various die components allow the shop to use skilled labor more efficiently.

Machine tool manufacturers DMG and Mori Seiki will join forces in the United States.

A multitasking (turnmill) machine that can mill a workpiece top and bottom at the same time has advantages for long, slender workpieces such as turbine blades, propellers and aerospace structural components. Includes video.

Machine tool builder Mori Seiki (Hoffman Estates, Illinois) has announced a call for entries for the 2010 Innovation of the Americas contest, the third edition of the biennial competition.

Plans for a new Mori Seiki manufacturing plant in the United States could begin as soon as 2011.

Mori Seiki’s Digital Technology Laboratory (DTL), a 71,000-square-foot laboratory and technical center in Davis, California, has achieved LEED Gold certification for sustainable design.

Machine tool builder Mori Seiki says its new Mori360º service package was created to go beyond standard service and provide more comprehensive customer support from every angle.

Mori Seiki’s Digital Technology Laboratory (DTL), a 71,000-square-foot laboratory and technical center in Davis, California, has achieved LEED Gold certification for sustainable design.

It was a bold move for this company to install four new machine tools, including two turn-mills, at one time, but it was the only way to take the lean journey to a higher level. 

Integrating Lyndex-Nikken rotary tables into three-axis Mori Seiki VMCs provided this shop with five-axis capability at a fraction of the cost of a new five-axis machine.

Machine tool builder Mori Seiki says the grand opening event for its new American headquarters was a “resounding success,” attracting more than 2,200 visitors for four days of machining demonstrations, seminars and facility tours. A showroom, quality control room and workroom comprise 40,000 square feet—roughly 40 percent—of the new facility, which is located just north of Chicago in Hoffman Estates.

Japanese machine tool builder Mori Seiki has signed a distributorship agreement with German machine tool manufacturer Gildemeister AG (DMG) for sales and service activities in Japan. Under the agreement, Mori Seiki will take responsibility for sales and service of all Mori and DMG products in Japan.

The WorldSkills Competition is a biennial event in which students compete with their international peers in occupational trades. This year, the team from the United States entered in both the CNC turning and CNC milling categories. Includes VIDEO.

Machine tool builder Mori Seiki will host a grand opening ceremony and open house from November 3-5 to celebrate the completion of its 102,000-square-foot North American corporate headquarters northwest of Chicago in Hoffman Estates, Illinois. The three-day event will showcase more than 25 machine and cutting demonstrations, technologies in development and technical presentations from the Mori Seiki engineers and guest speakers.

Machine tool builder Mori Seiki has been selected to serve as an official supplier to the WorldSkills Calgary 2009 competition. Scheduled for September 1-7 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, the biennial competition was created to promote increased technical proficiency within participating countries.

This manufacturer’s use of live-tool lathes overcomes labor cost in various ways. One of the latest sources of savings involves bringing another operation—hobbing—into these machines. INCLUDES VIDEO.

Mori Seiki’s MV-1003L VMC uses cast iron columns and beds to achieve the high rigidity needed for heavy-duty cutting in the aircraft, shipping and energy industries. The machine’s four types of spindles enable a range of processing options—from high speed machining to heavy-duty cutting.

Machine tool builder Mori Seiki will host an opening ceremony and open house to celebrate the expansion of its Digital Technology Laboratory (DTL) in Davis, California. The three-day event, scheduled for May 20-22, will introduce media and guests to the new 70,000-square foot DTL headquarters and research and development center. According to the company, the facility is both environmentally and technologically friendly.

Machine tool builders Mori Seiki (Nagoya, Japan) and Gildemeister AG (Bielefeld, Germany) have signed a cooperation agreement to promote global business activities. The agreement covers production, purchasing, machine development, and sales and services in selected markets. In particular, the companies plan to control costs by leveraging their joint procurement and purchasing power on a global basis.

Machine tool builder Mori Seiki announces that it has become a member of the AMT-The Association for Manufacturing Technology. Founded in 1902, AMT represents and promotes the interests of American providers of manufacturing machinery and equipment. Its goal is to promote technological advancements and to act as an industry advocate on trade matters to governments and trade organizations throughout the world.

Mori Seiki has developed a text-engraving function that allows companies to engrave company or product names onto workpieces. The function is included on all its machines with Mapps III, a high-performance operating system with improved processing capacity and conversational functions. This system is said to improve tool management and facilitate short programming and setup times.

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.

Mori Seiki USA has announced the winners of the 2008 Innovation of the Americas machining competition, which is designed to recognize talented machinists in the metalworking industry. Four professionals from reputable industry organizations and universities, led by Professor Kazuo Yamazaki of the University of California, Davis, judged more than 130 entries in four categories. The entries represented a wide range of materials, sizes and shapes, and were of such high quality that selecting winners was challenging for the judges.

Research into the connectivity and communication between machine tools and equipment like bar feeders, part unloaders, pallet systems and even high-pressure coolant systems is yielding useful ability on the shop floor. In this case, LNS uses Internet technology in its S65 bar feeder to communicate with a PC-based Fanuc CNC running a Mori-Seiki NZ2000 lathe.

Mori Seiki U. S. A.

Mori Seiki’s NT series of integrated mill-turn centers fully combines a lathe with a machining center. The NT5400 DCG/1800S employs both driven at the center of gravity (DCG) technology and the box-in-box construction of the NH series HMCs. The center also employs a turret with a built-in milling motor from the NL series CNC lathes.

CAM developer DP Technology recently performed a successful test cut of a new cutting tool for turning applications that is designed to reduce vibration and heat buildup. The company's CAM software package, Esprit, now contains an add-on for programming the new tool. Developed jointly by machine tool builder Mori

After investing in a gantry-loaded turning center equipped with machine-mounted gaging system, this two-man shop nearly tripled its productivity.       

The part requires only milling and drilling, but it is still run on a lathe. Except for the cutoff tool, all of the turret positions on this lathe hold rotating tools. In other words, turning is not essential for using a lathe effectively. This application illustrates the productive possibilities of a modern turn-mill machine.

 Machine tool builder Mori Seiki has announced that it will move its U.S. headquarters to a larger facility this year. The expansion will accommodate the growth of the company's Chicago office since becoming the national headquarters in 2005. The new facility is currently in the planning stages and will be located

 Mori Seiki's Innovation Days event for 2008 will coincide with the company's 25th anniversary celebration. Scheduled from May 14-16 at the company's Chicago Technical Center, the event will feature presentations on topics including the latest machine innovations, new technologies and workforce developments. Attend

Heavy investment in this Swiss builder’s production facility will allow its output to rise just as the demand for large machine tools capable of nano-precision is also rising.

A new CAM feature continuously manages B-axis head rotation to allow turn-mills to completely turn inner and outer workpiece profiles using a single tool.

Rigid toolholding offers a platform for productivity on this pump manufacturer's mill-turn center.

This multi-axis machine extends beyond the capabilities of a turning center, offering the tooling capacity similar to that of a machining center. As a result, it enables efficient machining of complex-shaped workpieces in large quantities.

Disruptive technology's  purpose is to disrupt the way machining is done. This article includes some of the developments to come out of the Machining Technology Laboratory (MTL), an R&D initiative dedicated to finding innovations in metalworking processes.

Finding what works is both a guiding principle and a driving force for this machine tool builder.

When Prestige Precision Products (PPP), a shop in Rochester, New York, began ramping up for a recent high-production job, it made a substantial investment in new equipment dedicated to the project. Among the acquisitions were a new HMC with a pallet changer, customized tombstone fixtures for the pallets and some innovative tooling items. The part, an aluminum component for the automotive industry, had one hole to be drilled and tapped.

Manufacturing an array of component parts in small to medium quantities required that Purakal Cylinders Inc. (Eugene, Oregon) consider functionality and quality when deciding to upgrade its production capabilities. The manufacturer of hydraulic and pneumatic cylinders and manifolds, which offers standard and custom-built products, explored various options in an effort to streamline production.

This series of turn/mill machines combines the full turning capability of a pure turning center and the full millig capability of a machining center. Design features address critical issues of vibration and heat.

On a machining center, the choice of ballscrews or linear motors may not be as important as where the motors apply their force.

In the fast-paced marketplace, manufacturers may feel the pressure to shorten turnaround times without compromising quality. This shop has enacted a strategy that has allowed it to provide shorter turnaround times and also to become more adaptive to its customers' needs.

In vertical grinding, the workpiece is held upright in a rotary chuck with the grinding spindle overhead. This configuration can improve roundness, facilitate single-setup processing and prolong the life of the machine. Loading and unloading may gets easier, too. Workpieces with relatively large diameters and short lengths benefit the most from vertical grinding.

At first glance, it might appear that this investment casting company, like many of its peers, reduced its workforce to get through difficult times. Nothing could be further from the truth.

This shop takes on prototype projects not only to lure production work, but also to educate its employees and demonstrate advanced machining capabilities to new and existing customers.

Usually thought of as stand-alone machines, they fit right into this automotive stamper's automated production lines.

Examining this shop's healthy medical machining business shows that both medical components and medical customers require special care.

Much of machine tool development is based on an incremental approach to design. In such cases, each "new" design is more a refinement of the previous generation of proven technology than a reinvention of the machine type and its purpose. With Mori Seiki's new NL series of turning centers, however, the builder was

The metalworking industry's keen interest in high speed, high accuracy machining during the last decade has focused attention on one topic in particular - vibration.

When this South Carolina screw machine shop started losing jobs to China, it looked for ways to replace the lost business with more challenging jobs where labor costs are not the only consideration. The firm invested in a pair of turn-mill machines that run 24/7, producing parts complete in one setup. The new machining capability has attracted new business that more than compensates for that which was lost.

Long setup times on individual machines were stifling productivity. Setup times of 8 to 24 hours were not uncommon. Something had to be done, but it had to be done carefully.

A formal training program not only helped ease this firm’s transition from cam automatics to CNC lathes, but it also enabled the firm to staff a third shift in record time.

Keen competition in a growing market segment and maintaining necessary standards of quality make the medical implant industry a challenging business. This shop designs, develops, manufactures and markets products used primarily by orthopaedic medical specialists in both surgical and non-surgical therapy.

A Minnesota manufacturer of precision parts boosts productivity by expanding its workholding capacity.

Machining cells have replaced transfer lines as part of a $100-million-plus modernization program to machine drivetrain parts more efficiently and more cost effectively.

This shop has applied this vertical machining center to help with its core business of prototype and small runs.

Walk into Mori Seiki's Digital Technology Laboratory (DTL) in Sacramento, California, and you might think you've instead wandered into a West Coast extension of the United Nations. The facility is dedicated to software development and engineering for the machine tool builder worldwide, and the makeup of the staff certainly speaks to diverse needs of a global market.

With so many vertical machining centers on the market, why would a major machine tool builder introduce yet another entry into this highly competitive environment? The only logical answer can be that this builder believes no one else is producing a machine that compellingly fills an existing need.

By eliminating extra steps, a multi-process machine enables a medical manufacturer to streamline its production time and conserve shop space.

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.

Does a highly automated process have to be highly customized? Here is a snapshot of one low-manpower process machining thousands of parts per week on standard CNC machines.

There are many ways to integrate a personal computer (PC) with a computer numerical control (CNC) system.

Can shops have machining centers versatile enough to handle both high speed and conventional cutting? Yes, but with some qualifications. And contrary to what you may be hearing, mechanical qualities may be the most important factors of all.

Live tooling on turning centers greatly expands multiple processing capability. With the addition of Y-axis, turning and machining process integration takes a significant step further. Here's how the technology works.

VIDEO. Valve maker Richards Industries took a part that used to machined at one machine tool and added an additional setup on a vertical machining center. Higher throughput was the result.

A vacuum system for the machining center draws particulate through the center of the tool.