Machine Monitoring Boosts Five-Axis Utilization by 46%

Effective shopfloor improvement stems from robust data about machine performance and activity. Kody Guidry, general manager of Coastal Machine and Supply, knew this for a long time, and as the shop continued to expand from oil and gas work into the defense and aerospace markets, he was determined to find a real-time machine monitoring system to provide that data. After encountering Datanomix at IMTS 2024, he adopted it for a pilot program he has continued to build out, with early testing showing significant increases in utilization on the shop’s most complex machines.

Televisions on the shop floor display the status of machines connected to Datanomix. The shop’s goal is for bars to show as much green as possible for effective work. All images courtesy of Coastal Machine and Supply.

Exploring New Markets

Coastal Machine started in 2004 in Carencro, Louisiana, as a turning-focused shop for large round parts used in the oil and gas industry. When this market hit a downturn during the COVID-19 pandemic, the shop decided to expand its target markets to avoid laying off staff, choosing the aerospace and defense markets as an alternative revenue stream.

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Modern Machine Shop wrote about the early years of this transition at the start of 2023, including the shop’s investment in two DMG MORI five-axis machine centers, simulation software, vacuum workholding, a Hexagon CMM and a Keyence touch probe. The shop also received ITAR certification and learned to adapt its carbon steel and high-nickel alloy strategies to aluminum parts.

In the years since, the shop has continued to grow its lineup of five-axis mills, which Guidry says have enabled Coastal Machine to take on space industry work that would otherwise have been cost-prohibitive for the shop to bid on. It has also taken its first steps into lights-out machining with a five-axis DMG MORI DMC 85 equipped with a six-pallet system. Its work is now split roughly into about 60% space and defense and 40% oil and gas, with the former requiring much tighter tolerances than the latter. For the shop’s rapid shift and adoption of new technologies to stay profitable, it needed a way to measure and improve its process efficiency. This set Guidry to looking into machine monitoring at IMTS 2024.

Datanomix provides Coastal with a continuous view of where shop processes can improve, whether in the cutting process or during setup and part changes.

Building Trust in Machine Monitoring

Guidry spoke with Datanomix founder Greg McHale and his team at the show and agreed to begin a pilot program for the software at the start of 2025. To promote buy-in from the team on the shop’s first machine monitoring software, he set the program to run on production machines staffed by successful, tenured employees whom he says were likely to look at the bigger efficiency picture without fear that the data would be used against them.

The pilot program, like most initial implementations of machine monitoring, revealed that Coastal Machine had a much lower total utilization than management thought. While it was a shock, shop leadership had a baseline from which they could improve utilization.

They set a TV on the shop floor to show all the machines connected to Datanomix and explained the system to the staff. With the experienced staff members to vouch for it, acceptance of the system was relatively swift. The shop’s bonus system, where high shop performance leads to shopfloor staff receiving higher take-home pay, also helped with staff buy-in and has spurred staff to be more proactive about solving the process and machine stumbling blocks that Datanomix reveals.

The DMG MORI DMC 85 MonoBlock is Coastal’s first automated machine tool. The potential for lights out work makes machine monitoring vital, as the machine going offline over the weekend can derail production schedules. Over the first two months of 2026 alone, Guidry credits Datanomix with helping the shop increase its utilization of the machine by 46%.

Visibility Leads to Utilization Improvements

Thus far, Coastal has mostly implemented the utilization side of Datanomix, including alerts for cell leads if the machine is down for longer than 15 minutes. Guidry says the system has been particularly effective at improving performance on the pallet changer-equipped DMC 85, with a 46% increase in utilization from the start of 2026 to mid-March. The real-time performance monitoring lets shop staff know if the machine stops during a lights-out period, and the job tracking gives them a better idea of where in a process the machine stopped (as well as a few ideas on why). This means the shop can send an operator in over the weekend when needed to fix the error on the machine, keeping productivity high.

Coastal Machine has connected Datanomix to its ProShop ERP to source the estimated cycle times for each part number running on the machines, with the system showing letter grades of how the part is running compared to expectations. While the improvements for the majority of its machines may not be as dramatic as the DMC 85 with its lights-out component, Guidry says the shop makes good use of Datanomix’s continuous views of areas that can improve. Most times, this comes down to setups taking too long or part changes costing too much downtime, so the shop reorganized its fixtures and work cells for a more efficient workflow. The shop has also moved its tooling to a central area to further cut down on how long machinists spend gathering tooling for each job.

Thus far, Coastal Machine has implemented Datanomix on its five-axis machines and other mills. It has also integrated two lathes into the system, with more lathe integrations and CMM integration planned as the shop continues to grow confident with the software. As Coastal connects more of its machines to Datanomix, Guidry hopes to implement additional features from the software, such as the Margin Master feature comparing quote viability to part performance. But on the whole, he says the shop’s goal for the year is to start documenting downtime and looking at trends, which should help inspire new ideas for continuous improvement and improve the shop’s ability to handle complex jobs lights on and lights out.