2018cnc4-5.2

26 www.CNC-West.com CNC WEST April/May 2018 In retrospect, both Katie and Gregg agreed that they wish they had added Vericut sooner than they did. “Ini- tially it took some getting used to,” tells Katie. “We have machinists who have been doing it one way forever. En- graining in them the importance of verification was a pro- cess in itself. Building it into our culture was beneficial, but didn’t come overnight.” Speaking to some of the op- erators on the dayshift they were delighted to have an- other line of defense against programming problems, but admitted it took a little while before it became second na- ture. No one even thinks about it now, it is just something they do on every job, on every program, every day. “We own 4 seats of Vericut in the milling department,” touts Gregg. “This ensures no waiting to use it and it takes away the thought of just skipping it and reloading onto a ma- chine.” The milling department consists of 17 machining centers and each one is built and entered into Vericut as its own machine tool. “Vericut isn’t generic simulation, but exact models of our machining centers right down to the nuts and bolts,” explains Gregg. “As an example we have 11 Makino A51 or A55 machines. They are our basic milling platform, but within those machines are five different spindle types. Depending on the age of the machine the spindle cartridge is different, or they might have a different taper. All that is input into Vericut. If it clears the spindle on one machine that doesn’t guarantee it works on a different machine that is the same model. When we run the simulation we run it for Makino #1 and that program is only proofed out for Makino #1.” MacKay Manufacturing are taking it one step further and are in Above Left - VP Katie MacKay Above Right - Milling department supervisor Gregg Meyer Left - MacKay Manufacturing is 100% a family owned and run business. Management knows all 151 employees by name and each one has their own professional head shots. Cooper the shop dog sits in front of the employee lounge area where every employee is part of the MacKay Manufacturing family tree. MacKay’s turing departments are extensive. The shop is loaded with DMG Mori Seiki multi-axis lathes as well as Tsugami and a Tornos Swiss turning centers.