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Siemens 840D controllers for all their machines, meaning jobs and operators could fluidly move from one machine to another”, says Henderson.
FLEXIBILITY
“From my perspective,” says Rudeseal, “one of the reasons we stick with Starrag rather than shopping around, resulting in dissimilar pieces of equipment and controllers in the shop, is exactly that. Flexibility to be able to move loads and work around depending on what happens moment by moment is critical at DSC. You can’t move work around very easily or inexpensively or safely if you don’t have the same controllers.
“We’ve great equipment engineers and process engineers and a solid, agile architecture where if we can put everything in place, we’ll have the accuracy, the productivity, and then the flexibility to adjust the loads. We’re becoming a very powerful manufacturing engine here. We are not there yet, but we can see the goal, and it’s not far off, that of being the premier manufacturer of gearboxes, period. Tolerance-wise, we’ve always been there.”
PUMPING PRODUCTIVITY
In addition to being flexible and agile to meet demand, DSC is also working on trying to reduce set-up and cycle time and hike throughput. “With the old method,” Rudeseal notes, “it took us 200 days to do a gearbox. That
was the plan, and actually it took us more than 200 days. But when we put in the large 4-and 5-axis SIP jig bores, the 4-axis CWK 800s and the 4- and 5-axis SIP 7000s, plus the large case cell with the monster (twin 5-axis STC 1250s and a multi-story Fastem linear automated, programmable pallet load/unload, storage and retrieval system), we reduced planned cycle time down to a little less than 100 days. We cut it in half. We were able to achieve a 30% productivity output increase with all these new machines and combining operations. We went from around 300 boxes to 400 boxes a year, therefore, we probably did 40-45 percent more boxes.”
A UNIQUELY HIGH-PRECISION JOB SHOP
Henderson addresses the “uniquely high-precision nature of the DSC ‘job shop’.” The twin STC 1250s run at 6,000 rpm even though they have the capability of 10,000 rpm, he says. “The program is written at 6,000 because engineering doesn’t want us to run the spindle too high. They worry about the residual stresses on the material, the heat buildup. And we’re not really that speed conscious here. We run castings or forgings. We’re removing 0.0015in or 0.0016in material. We really are a precision shop. Our gears are AGMA Class 13. The only people who build a better gear is NASA (Class 14), and we’ve built a number of their gears.”
Casting material is pretty common, 8356 or 8357 aluminum and titanium. The grade of titanium is purified
52 www.CNC-West.com
CNC WEST August/September 2020
U.S. 5TH FLEET AREA OF RESPONSIBILITY (May 24, 2014) U.S. Marine Corps
MV-22 Osprey aircraft with Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron (VMM) 263 (Reinforced), 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU), conduct flight operations. The 22nd MEU is deployed with the Bataan Amphibious Ready Group as a theater reserve and crisis response force throughout U.S. Central Command and the U.S. 5th Fleet area of responsibility. (U.S. Marine Corps photo/Released)