CNC Machining Center Technology Moving Forward

With the popularity of these CNC equipments continuing to grow, customers are looking to get a wider range of production from one machine and effective machine controls. They also are looking for improvements in safety and self-diagnostics. Improved material handling also was noted by many as being on manufacturers’ wish lists.

Companies have come to the realization that they can purchase the fastest CNC machining centers in the world to produce their product, but when all this efficiency is lost by not having an adequate means of loading or off loading material it defeats the purpose. More and more, companies are taking close looks at their process flow and designing workcells that keep the machine producing parts at the highest rate possible.

Flexible material handling systems, from elevator type storage systems for panel inventory to short term buffers for WIP, that allow manufacturing efficiency for the machines while sending the right parts to assembly and packaging.

Current developments are greatly focused on material handling, automatic load/unload solutions and automatic tool and material identification. These are areas that can provide quick returns in efficiency reducing labor intervention and streamlining production processes. The main applications for automatic material handling are in nested based manufacturing, as well as solid wood applications for doors and windows manufacturing. I do believe the woodworking industry will begin to accept the use of industrial robots as the metal working industry has.

As already mentioned, any feature that provides labor savings is a much more popular topic these days, while processing speed is less important.  Another request is for simple machine controls that run on the PC platform, making the CNC machine easily added to the network and providing a familiar interface that makes operator training easy and fast.