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C O V E R S TO R Y

TECHNOLOGY

Image courtesy: Shutterstock

MINIMUM QUANTITY LUBRICATION An approach for sustainable manufacturing

In order to achieve sustainability in metal cutting it is necessary to achieve dry cutting for all work materials. The article highlights the scope of near dry machining in a machining environment that carries minimal quantities of oil lubrication in an ‘aerosol’ format to the cutting surface. This ensures lubrication of the cutting surface and allows for high performance machining.

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Dr Nageswara Rao Posinasetti Professor, Department of Technology University of Northern Iowa posinasetti@gmail.com

EM | Jul 2015

TECHNOLOGY

C O V E R S TO R Y

Figure 1: In order to achieve sustainability in metal cutting, it is necessary to achieve dry

Image Courtesy: EMO Hannover

cutting for all work materials

Cutting fluids play a major role in improving the performance and productivity of metal cutting operations.

However, effectiveness of cutting fluids degrades over time and this eventually calls for disposal of the spent fluids.

Because of their complex formulations, regular cutting fluids pose problems in their recycling and disposal. Increased environmental awareness and stringent regulations across the world, makes the disposal of cutting fluids an expensive proposition. Many companies are forced to spend on the cleanups due to poor waste disposal strategies. Because of their environmental impact, the use of extreme pressure additives, biocides, and other additives are often restricted.

Cutting fluids generate mist and machine operators are exposed to these harmful chemical substances continuously over long periods. This causes skin cancer among long-term machine tool operators. The accumulation of mist in the lungs of the operators is responsible for severe respiratory problems.

Thus, an alternative solution for the reduction in the use of normal cutting fluids is a necessity to reduce the fluid costs as well as moving towards sustainability.

Flood coolant effect In USA, it is reported that in 1999 more than 100 million gallons of metalworking fluids were used and a total of 1.2 million employees were exposed to the harmful effects of these cutting fluids, and were likely to face potential health hazards. As per the US National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), the permissible exposure level for metal working fluid (MWF) aerosol concentration is 0.5 mg/m3, while the oil mist level in the US automotive parts manufacturing facilities has been estimated to be 20-90 mg/m3 with the use of conventional lubrication by flood coolant.

In a typical industrial machine tool, there are auxiliary

EM | Jul 2015

equipments whose energy requirements far exceed that of the actual cutting energy requirements. Toyota has found from a large CNC machining centre, only 14.8% is used for actual machining, while the auxiliaries consumed the rest (85.2%) of the energy (Dahmus and Gutowski, 2004). Also, in German automotive companies, average cost of cutting fluids is quoted as 7 to 17% compared to the cutting tool cost as 2 to 4%. This large value for the cutting fluid cost is due to the fact that disposal of spent cutting fluid need to follow the strict guidelines for environmental safety. In addition, most of the industrial cutting fluids have harmful additives containing chlorine and sulphur that increase the cost of disposal. It is, therefore, important that the use of cutting fluid be minimised to the extent possible for sustainability and economic advantage.

In order to achieve sustainability in metal cutting, it is necessary to achieve dry cutting for all work materials. As of today, it is possible to use dry cutting with a limited set of work materials such as free cutting steels. The path to dry cutting therefore goes through Minimum Quantity Lubrication and vegetable cutting fluids (biodegradable) - biodegradability becomes an important requirement for the choice of sustainable cutting fluid.

Minimum Quantity Lubrication The application of low quantities of cutting fluids is currently termed as Minimum Quantity Lubrication (MQL).

The concept of MQL arises from the fact that a majority of the cutting fluid used in flooding is not really utilised for any purpose other than flushing chips and splashing. The idea of MQL is not new and a lot of interest was demonstrated in 1960s and 1970s when it was called as mist cooling. The main purpose here is to use as little cutting fluid as required that

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C O V E R S TO R Y

TECHNOLOGY

Figure 2: External and internal feed of atomised cutting fluid in MQL

provides just enough cooling and lubrication for the required situation. General range of flow rate in MQL is of the order of 5 to 500 ml/hr. This is far less than the conventional quantities, which are of the order of 120000 ml/hr. This low volume of fluid can be supplied with or without the assistance of compressed air. A pump supplies the cutting fluid drop-wise without any compressed air, which would not be efficient for flushing chips from the machining zone. The more common usage is the fluid is mixed with compressed air, which atomises the fluid into very small droplets, and the pressurised jet is focused on the machining zone.

The MQL method involves the application of atomised cutting fluid with the help of compressed air at a typical pressure of 4 to 6 bar through a specially designed nozzle directed at a position close to the cutting zone. The nozzle diameter is about 1 to 2 mm. In MQL, as the cutting fluid droplets meet the heated cutting zone, they evaporate, extracting the latent heat from the machining zone. Since the convective heat transfer is small compared to evaporative transfer, substantial amount of heat will be removed in MQL. Since all the cutting fluid is evaporated during contact with the workpiece and tool surfaces, there is no waste disposal problem making clean chips compared to conventional flood cooling. The vaporised cutting fluid then easily penetrates the chip-tool interface and provided the required lubrication to reduce the friction between the chip and the cutting tool rake face. MQL in the form of aerosol can be supplied in two ways that are external and internal with holes in the cutting tools.

from the nozzle and then supplied at the cutting point externally. Since the nozzle supplying the cutting fluid aerosol is external, it is simple to adopt with any existing machine tool.

This results in low investment costs and little work required to retrofit existing machines. In addition, no special cutting tools with internal holes for cutting fluid are required. The main disadvantage of the system is limited adjustment options for cutting tools because of the different lengths and diameters.

This will particularly be a problem with unattended operation, where the MQL nozzle can interfere with the operation of ATC of CNC machine tools. One solution is to make sure that all the tools are of the same length.

In the internal supply system, the fluid aerosol is supplied through the holes in the cutting tools directly onto the cutting zone. The cutting fluid droplets that penetrates the chip-tool interface provides the lubricating function, while the compressed air and the evaporated cutting fluid performs the cooling action. The main advantages of this system are that optimal lubrication is provided at the tool point, the cutting fluid is fully contained and, thus, no scattering or spray losses, and optimised lubricant quantity for each tool can be provided by integrating the system with the CNC control. However, the disadvantage is that special tools with through holes for aerosol application are required for the purpose, suitable machine are required that permit the flow of the cutting fluid and compressed air through the spindle. All this requires upfront high investment costs.

High performance machining MQL techniques In the first method, the mixing of cutting fluid and compressed air is done in a separate mixing chamber away

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Minimum quantity lubrication technique offers several advantages over conventional flooding as below: t MQL utilises comparatively very little amount of cutting

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The eight pillars

C O V E R S TO R Y

TECHNOLOGY

Figure 3: The possible directions for the external application of MQL fluid

fluid making it almost dry and clean.

The aerosol of the cutting fluid vaporise quickly removing the heat while making the process clean and environmentally friendly. The emissions from MQL are low and healthier for the workers compared to flooding. t The use of compressed air flushes away the chips more efficiently thus making chip disposal a much easier task. t Experimental evidence presented so far indicates that MQL will be more productive, with an increased tool life and better surface finish.

It has been observed by many that the best machining performance in MQL is achieved when certain cutting fluid flow rate is maintained which is considered as optimal. Machining performance deteriorates below and above that flow rate. The optimum consumption of cutting fluid in mist application may be explained (P N Rao 1980) as follows: “When the cutting fluid content of the mist is low, most of the heat dissipation and lubrication at the rake face is done by the air moving at a very high velocity and the instantly vaporised liquid. An increase in the cutting fluid in mist improves the effectiveness of the mist because of increased vaporisation and lubrication action. However, an increase in cutting fluid content increases the size of the particles and this may reduce the accessibility of the fluid particles to the chip-tool interface.

Further, an increase in the drop size reduces the surface area to volume ratio for each drop and hence the possibility of vaporisation of the drops that may have penetrated to the rake face may be reduced thereby reducing the evaporative cooling.

There is thus a limit to the improvement in performance that can be obtained with mist application by increasing the cutting fluid content in the mist.�

t

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Practical considerations MQL can be applied to any type of machining operations such as turning, drilling, milling, grinding, etc. In MQL, the major function served by the cutting fluid is lubrication.

Bulk of the cutting fluid applied is evaporated when meets the workpiece or chip. As a result, it is necessary to utilise cutting fluids with very good lubricity and high flash point to reduce the mist formation. It is generally a good practice to use synthetic esters and fatty alcohols that have higher viscosities and high flash points. In addition, these are readily biodegradable. Synthetic esters are generally preferred for most of the machining processes where the lubricating effect between tool, the workpiece and chips is of prime importance. This is particularly true in the case of drilling. Another advantage that is available with synthetic esters is despite their low viscosity, they have a high boiling point and flash point. This means that mist generated during interaction with the workpiece is much lower compared to conventional mineral oils.

On the other hand, fatty alcohols have a lower flash point at the same viscosity. They offer less lubricity compared to synthetic esters. Fatty alcohols are preferred in machining operations where the cooling and adhesive nature of the chip is more important to avoid built-up-edge such as for many non-ferrous materials. Vegetable oils though have higher biodegradabaility, because of the presence of unsaturated bond structure they degrade quickly by oxidation polymerisation, which will increase the viscosity with time. The keeping qualities are poor and are likely to mess with the aerosol spraying system of the MQL equipment.

It has been noticed that the cutting fluids used in MQL will

EM | Jul 2015

C O V E R S TO R Y

TECHNOLOGY

Table 1: Successful mass-produced

COMPONENT

MATERIAL

PROCESS

TOOL LIFE

MEDIUM, CHEM. BASE, VISCOSITY 40°C

Camshaft

16MnCr5

Drilling

2400 holes

Fatty alcohol Visc: 10 – 20 mm2/s

Camshaft

16MnCr5

Reaming

1200 operations

Fatty alcohol Visc: 10 – 20 mm2/s

Crankshaft

38MnVS5

Drilling

500 holes

Fatty alcohol Visc: 20 mm2/s

Crankshaft

38MnVS5

Countersinking

960 operations

Fatty alcohol Visc: 20 mm2/s

Crankcase

Al Si9 Cu3

Deep hole drilling

5000 holes

Synthetic ester Visc: 40 – 50 mm2/s

CK 45

Drilling (Impact drilling)

100 – 150 holes

Synthetic ester Visc: 20 – 30 mm2/s

automobile parts using MQL

Universal joints

have practical viscosity range of 15 to 50 mm2/s and in some cases up to 100 mm2/s at 40°C. It is necessary to discuss with the MQL system manufacturer about a change in the cutting fluid other than the one suggested by them because of the problems associated with the aerosol formulation and its spraying ability depends upon the viscosity and oxidation nature.

Choosing nozzle direction In a typical metal cutting situation, the MQL nozzle can be located in any one of the three external positions identified in Figure 3 as nozzle 1 at the back of the chip, nozzle 2 between the chip and the cutting tool and nozzle 3 between the cutting tool and the workpiece interface. In the case of nozzle 1 direction, the cutting fluid aerosol will not reach the interface between the chip and tool or tool and workpiece because of its location.

As a result, it will be able to remove the heat from the work and chip. In the nozzle direction 2 though aerosol is directed in the chip tool interface direction, because of the direction of chip movement, it is difficult for the cutting fluid to reach the chip tool interface, and as such will not be effective. Since MQL relies heavily on its lubricating effect, the fluid should enter the chip tool interface in order to perform the lubricating function.

The best location, therefore, will be the nozzle direction 3 where the movement of workpiece helps in allowing the atomized cutting fluid particles to move beyond the tool tip and enter the chip tool interface for providing effective lubrication.

In the case of drilling with external MQL application, the flank surface is not accessible, and therefore the actual direction of nozzle 2 will be the best option. If there is a pilot hole, placing a second nozzle through the pilot hole will help to improve the drilling performance.

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Sustainable manufacturing In the global automobile sector, MQL technology can no longer be over looked. In the case of large car manufacturers it has long been since practice, now medium sized companies have followed the trend and opted for MQL. A leading automobile manufacturer equipped with an MQL system for its cylinder head machining has reduced lubricant consumption by 98%, water consumption by 90% and energy consumption by 54% resulting in 46% lower CO2 emissions, as reported by the customers of a MQL system manufacturer.

German automotive manufacturers have experimented with the use of MQL and successfully adopted it for a number of their components. Table 1 provides a sample of such components and the related data that would be useful to adopt

by Indian automotive manufacturers. In fact, Ford Motor Company has started using MQL on more than 400 of their CNC machining centres worldwide to machine the engine and transmission components.

Conclusion Minimum quantity lubrication has certainly moved out of research laboratories and practiced by a number of automobile manufacturers, particularly in Europe. A large number of case studies and practical information and data is already available from MQL system manufacturers as well as practitioners.

Careful planning of MQL adoption would help Indian manufacturers to not only reduce the use of cutting fluids but also decrease machining costs. This will be a great step in the direction of sustainable manufacturing. ☐ > MORE@CLICK EM01720 | www.efficientmanufacturing.in

EM | Jul 2015

Research and Development, Hasle-Rüegsau, Switzerland

Ever since our company founding in 1936 we have developed products benefiting our customers with added value.

www.blaser.com

Blaser Swisslube India Pvt. Ltd.

Gurg Gu rg gao aon n, Pin n, in – 12200 22 2002 00 02 Phon Ph hon o e 0124 0124 – 4 01 499 994 99 4000, indi 40 dia@ di a@bl @bl blas a er.com as

High-quality metalworking fluids.

MANAGEMENT | INTERVIEW

“Buy & Build strategy in the new markets” ...says Dr Jörg Matthias Grossmann, Member of the Board and Regional Representative India, Freudenberg Group, in this interaction with Maria Jerin, while highlighting the mega trends of the company’s business group, its global strategy and business presence. He also details about the group’s future growth plan for the Indian market.

How has been the performance of Freudenberg in India and more than a decade. We support the goals of this campaign by globally, in the current market situation? our long-term commitment to India with various initiatives.

We are highly diversified. This is the biggest advantage of We have strong business ties in this country for almost 100 Freudenberg Group. We have recognised a lot of green business. years. Our production sites are represented here for more We have products and solutions in mega trends like mobility, than 20 years with continuous investments in further growth, renewable energy and urbanisation, where we have excellent production & development. We have a combination of our business opportunities. So, when we had crisis in one of our global presence with local expertise to create tailor-made businesses, it was supported by other. We had a good business solutions for the Indian market. Our steady growth leads to in India. We got advantage in 2009 when there was a growth new jobs. At the new SFN factory in Basma, for example, more reduction in Germany and the US. than 2,000 employees, half of them women, will manufacture In 2014, we have generated an overall sales of `1,497 crore seals for the Indian market and for export. in India. As of last year, we have employed 2,800 full-time associates at around 50 locations in India - with four R&D Why R&D is crucial in the manufacturing segment in context centres and 14 production sites with state-of-the-art shop with the current competitive global environment and what floors. The total global sales of the Freudenberg Group is your company’s approach on this? amounted to `56,860 crore, representing growth of 6.3% over Without R&D, there will be no innovation. Innovations are the previous year, thus, resulting in global record sales for the vital for Freudenberg’s success since more than 165 years. We fifth consecutive year. invest 3.8% of our total sales in R&D. According to the EU R&D scoreboard 2013 study commissioned by the European How has ‘Make in India’ poised and re-energised Commission higher than the global average of 3.2%. We Freudenberg’s growth engine in India? measure our innovative strength on the basis of innovations ‘Make in India’ has been our strategy and we are doing this for that have been successfully implemented and based on sales

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INTERVIEW | MANAGEMENT

“We have a combination of our global presence with local expertise to create tailor-made solutions for Indian market” Dr Jörg Matthias Grossmann

generated by products less than four years old. This share rose further, from 27.5% in the previous year to 28.2% in 2014.

technology. We will always screen the Indian market and take opportunities aligned with our strategy.

Do you see any difference in the Indian manufacturing market conditions as compared to that in any developing countries? If yes, what are the factors?

The number of highly qualified people in India is increasing.

This is crucial for our long-term success. We invest in education in cooperation with universities and institutes. A few years ago, we have started FIELD (Freudenberg India Entrepreneurial Leadership Development) program with the intention of training and developing our future managers in the areas of sales, operations and finance. The participants of the program are mainly recruited from IIM in Bangalore and Kozhikode, the Indian School of Business and the National Institute of Industrial Engineering.

We also have Freudenberg technical training centre in the area of Nagapattinam, that provides sustained support for the region affected by the tsunami in 2004. In the meantime, about 350 young people have been given an opportunity to train in a technical vocation so that they can shape their own future and the future of their country.

How do you foresee the Indian market among other Asian economies, and what are your expectations from the market in the coming year?

Firstly, it is not important that the middle class in India is increasing by 10 million per year, but there is a huge power of demand developing in this country. Secondly, the demographic dividend, the one child policy in China will soon affect the local demand. When we are talking about the local demand in India and China, the difference in India is the basis for the GDP development, but in China it is much more of the exports.

I recognise some excellent basis for the future development.

The current situation is one item, expection is the other and strategy is third. In long-term, we strive for a balanced presence in the North and South America, Europe and Asia.

Freudenberg is engaged into several industry sectors in India. Which is the most crucial for the group and why?

The Freudenberg Group is broadly diversified, which lends its valuable stability. We want to continue on our profitable and sustainable growth trajectory in our established businesses, as well as in our strategic growth markets. We are continuously growing in our established business areas, such as sealing technologies, nonwovens, chemical specialities and household products. Furthermore, our global strategy is to accelerate the pace with a ‘Buy and Build’ (a combination of acquisition and organic growth) strategy in the new markets. Four clear strategic fields are priority for future investments: chemical surface treatment, oil & gas, medical technology and filtration

EM | Jul 2015

How do you plan the company’s growth in near future in India, in terms of investments, expansions, acquisitions/ collaborations, etc?

India is a market with one of the world’s biggest potentials.

According to our long-term commitment, we will definitely be investing and expanding in this region over the next few years. One of our significant projects is the new production site of Chem-Trend and Klüber Lubrication in Mysore that will officially open in August 2015. For a total of around `135 crore, it is one of the largest investments in the Asia-Pacific region.

This is where more than 20 products will be developed and manufactured for the customers in the South East Asia/Pacific region. The site hosts product development facilities and major tribology testing facilities with equipment such as an FZG test rig (Gear Research Centre). This is the only one within Klüber outside Munich and the only one in India until now. ☐ > MORE@CLICK EM01721 | www.efficientmanufacturing.in

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R O U N D - TA B L E | M A N A G E M E N T

Making manufacturing future-ready As India is stepping into a new phase of manufacturing, the machine tool industries have diligently worked on enriching its products, thus, matching international standards.

The round–table features modern-day marketing strategies and best business practices suggested by the next-generation manufacturing leaders, to strengthen the presence of Indian machine tool industry globally. Excerpts…

Srimoyee Lahiri Sub-editor & Correspondent srimoyee.lahiri@publish-industry.net

Megha Roy Features Writer megha.roy@publish-industry.net

Next generation manufacturing rightly describes an “UDAAN” – Emerging Leaders Expanding Horizons, to involve organisation that performs at world-class level in six broad the second-generation entrepreneurs, emerging leaders and areas. These areas encompass growth, innovation, continuous young professionals of the machine tool industry into the improvement, working with suppliers and customers as mainstream activities of the industry and association with an partners, global engagement and profitable sustainability. objective of nurturing, developing and fostering leadership Taking a step forward for achieving this goal, the Indian development, while cultivating them as future ‘think tanks’.

Machine Tool Manufacturers’ Association (IMTMA) has Currently, the machine tool industry is marked by launched a young machine tool entrepreneur’s club named as continuous change in technology. As such, young talent has an

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EM | Jul 2015

M A N A G E M E N T | R O U N D - TA B L E

“Industry should interact and highlight the challenges & opportunities to students at school & college levels” Kapil Dhand, Director, Micromatic Grinding Technologies

eminent role to play in developing new technologies for the changing market needs. This round–table highlights the modern-day marketing strategies and business mantras to strengthen the presence of Indian machine tool industry on a global platform and focuses on various ways to make the next generation manufacturing arena future-ready.

Suggesting views on the same are Kapil Dhand, Director, Micromatic Grinding Technologies; Sameer Kelkar, Executive Director, Grind Master Machines; Madhavi Chandrashekar, Head - Market Development, Ace Designers Ltd; Vishwas Ramdas, R&D OSD, Ace Manufacturing Systems and Aditya Ratnaparkhi, Chairman, UDAAN & Executive Director, Electronica Mechatronic Systems India.

“There is a need to carry some industry-level activities to develop gen-next leaders” Madhavi Chandrashekar, Head - Market Development, Ace Designers Ltd.

“To attract the best talent in the country, there needs to be more awareness of the industry” Sameer Kelkar, Executive Director, Grind Master Machines

Action plan for UDAAN UDAAN members have put together a set of action plans for the group as well as the industry, at large. This includes leadership, management, vision and people. Emphasising on this, Kapil says, “UDAAN, along with industry CEOs, have articulated a set of key strategic actions to realise the objectives in the ‘VISION 2020’. Few elements identified on the same are focusing on nurturing leadership, as well as visionary abilities amongst the members. These elements pertain to ushering a new work culture, towards changing attitudes, integrating sustainability in business strategies, handling inorganic growth, creating R&D policy and leveraging social media, for a new outlook on ‘go-to-market’. We have already set the ball rolling with a recent workshop on ‘Ushering in a New Work Culture’”.

Elaborating on action plans, Madhavi opined that while most strategies are to be executed by individual organisations, there is a need to carry out industry-level activities to develop gen-next leaders. “This can be done by conducting regular workshops to train gen-next team in leadership, branding, R&D, planning & sustainability skills and driving intercompany projects at industry level to execute common strategies, while participating in task forces with customer and supplier industry associations for joint improvement initiatives,” she suggests. Adding his thoughts on the same, Vishwas avers, “One of the key methodologies to nurture future leaders is to

EM | Jul 2015

ensure good exposure to market trends, both locally and internationally. Exposure to current manufacturing application requires awareness and understanding of the emerging trends.

Training in leadership skills can enable young engineers to have overall development, allowing them to undertake challenging assignments”.

In this context, Aditya adds that IMTMA has formed a joint committee with ACMA, which has been mainly driven by UDAAN members under the guidance of our senior IMTMA members.

Making manufacturing attractive Currently, the machine tool industry is marked by continuous change in technology. As such, young talent has an eminent role to play in developing new technologies for the changing market needs. “To train young engineers as future ready, our company has been doing its part by regularly interacting with engineering students, offering them a chance to visit the facility. Resources like educative videos, articles and presentations are made available online, thus, ensuring students are at par with the trends in the industry,” says Vishwas.

To make the next-generation future-ready, Kapil

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R O U N D - TA B L E | M A N A G E M E N T

recommends engaging youth at an early stage. “Industry should interact and highlight the challenges & opportunities to students at school & college levels. Internship programs with relevant projects are also a good way to attract talent. At MGT, we have been taking interns from top institutes every year.

We have also taken active participation in government-funded R&D projects with IIT-Delhi and IIT-Madras,” he avers.

“To nurture future leaders, we need to ensure exposure to market trends, both locally and internationally” Vishwas Ramdas, R&D OSD Ace Manufacturing Systems

Industry-institute collaboration To develop new technology trends for the futuristic requirement in the market, it is advantageous for industries to associate with academic institutions. As such, industry-institute collaboration helps in delivering more value to develop next generation manufacturing. Highlighting this, Kapil opines that students and professors do not have fixed mindsets unlike professionals in the industry, who due to their previous experiences have become rigid in mindsets. “Institutes are open to experimentation and are able to think more out-of-the-box. This helps generating innovative & breakthrough solutions,” he added.

According to Sameer, industry & institutions need each other to grow and deliver more value. “Industry can utilise R&D capabilities of institutions to develop processes and products of the future. Also, research needs to be stepped up dramatically in manufacturing industry,” he says. Suggesting further, Madhavi is of the opinion that industry often doesn’t spare resources for initiatives that are not specific or tangible resulting in lack of traction for research. “This can be an area of active, sustained collaboration. Pure science, and math oriented disciplines are best furthered by academia-industry collaboration,” she adds.

However, Aditya believes that in machine tool industry, the overall industry-institution collaboration is lacking, compared to the level of collaboration with other developed countries. “To tackle this issue on a national level, IMTMA has collaborated with IIT Madras, which is our first step towards bringing industry and educational institutes to work together,” he says.

Modern-day marketing strategies Today, marketing & branding is a key factor in being able to succeed globally. Speaking on this, Sameer says, “Indian

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“Currently, machine tool industry uses as much as latest technological advancement as any other industry” Aditya Ratnaparkhi, Chairman, UDAAN & Executive Director, Electronica Mechatronic Systems India

machine tool industry needs to build a reputation for being reliable consistent quality machine builders. Some joint exercises in doing this by the machine tool fraternity will benefit all members”. On the same, Madhavi believes in creating strong “Quality, Precision and Competitiveness” brand – by industry-wide interactions and projects with user industries in India and target markets.

Also, there is a need for the machine tool industry to brand itself to the youth. In this regard, Sameer says, “To attract the best engineering talent from the country, there needs to be more awareness of the industry so as to become the backbone of any manufacturing economy.” Suggesting the branding part, Madhavi believes that it can be achieved by creating industrymarketing collaterals that showcase specifically, how various engineering disciplines can contribute to our industry and sponsor machine tool chair/projects at selected educational institutes to promote R&D activities, thereby, exposing the potential of the industry. She futher says, “Because of limited visibility of the machine tool sector, most people are unaware of the varied career options the industry offers.”

“Designing and producing a high-tech CNC machine involves integration of cutting edge concepts and technologies from structural, electrical, mechanical, electronics and software engineering. A fresh engineer can begin his/her journey in any stream like design, production, quality, supply

EM | Jul 2015

R O U N D - TA B L E | M A N A G E M E N T

chain, marketing and service, which can further lead to a full life cycle career path. These aspects are generally not well understood outside of our industry,” she adds.

markets are here and in other Asian countries. Further, manufacturers will need to embrace digital technologies in their product & process developments to remain relevant & cost competitive”, he says.

Sameer believes that Industrie 4.0 is another revolution in Global presence manufacturing. As such, effective use of IT systems Since Indian machine tool companies have been gaining and Big Data, use of information flows and information popularity overseas for their engineering ability, superior visibility across all levels of the product chain, from customer quality and reliability of products compared to many other to customer is inevitable. According to Madhavi, Asian manufacturers; Vishwas believes that the ability to offer emerging trends in manufacturing include high volume cost competitive engineering solutions gives Indian machine production, which will require development of processes such tool companies an edge over other global players. “One of the as flow-line, single piece flow, automated material handling, key strategies is to participate in global exhibitions, showcasing inspection systems and batch production. “This requires high development in Indian machine tools. It is also necessary to accuracies and optimised processes, with short lead-times create references overseas to sell machine tools, which is a driven by multiple operations in a single setup, rapid challenging task considering competitive global market. It is prototyping or additive manufacturing using composites and always advantageous to have local partners in the respective improved shop-floor productivity through usage of countries for service support, which bolsters the export sales.” manufacturing intelligence solutions & digital factory concepts,” According to Aditya, since many Indian machine tool she adds. companies have been family run, and have been first generation Given that flexible manufacturing processes are allowing entrepreneur-driven businesses, this transformation can be a small batches of critical components to be produced cost bit challenging. “To overcome this issue and help industry to effectively, Vishwas believes that with an increase in labour adopt global best practices, IMTMA has developed the business cost and uncertainties at work, automated manufacturing with excellence model. Currently, machine tool industry uses as unmanned operations is seeing a rise in demand. “By 2020, much as latest technological advancement as any other emphasis will be much more on process efficiency than product industry,” he adds. efficiency,” he adds.

Going forward, Aditya expects to see many multinational companies doing sizable investment, not only in manufacturing Where is manufacturing heading to? capacities, but also in areas of research & development, supply According to Kapil, most technology, whether product or chain etc. “This, in-turn, will help the overall industry. Going process, is transferred from the developed countries so far, towards 2020, we are already seeing customer trend towards which will continue in the near future. However, due to cost automation, higher precision requirements and need for endpressures & improvement in available talent pool in lower cost to-end solutions. We expect this trend to grow in coming years,” countries, this is poised to change. “By 2020, India and China he presumes.☐ are likely to play a major role globally, in new product and > MORE@CLICK EM01722 | www.efficientmanufacturing.in process technology development, due to the fact that the

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EM | Jul 2015

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C O M PA N Y P R O F I L E | M A N A G E M E N T

Lean & green transformation Located about 40 kms from Pune and spread across 54 acre land, Godrej Appliances facility at Shirwal goes beyond boundaries in spreading green and lean manufacturing initiatives. The first Company in India to be felicitated with the GreenCo – Platinum award by CII Green Business Centre, it produces India’s most energy efficient & environment-friendly refrigerators and air conditioners. Team EM recently visited the facility to witness the lean & green journey in the transformation process.

Set up in 1996, the Godrej Shirwal facility leaves no stone unturned to experience a rich flora and fauna, thus, restoring the natural ecosystem within the campus. With a strength of 520 employees, the facility has manufacturing lines for four product categories – refrigerators, washing machines, split air-conditioners and chotukool (thermo electric cooler) with a production capacity of 1.8 million appliances annually.

According to Hussain Shariyarr, Senior Vice President— Operations, Godrej Appliances, the oasis manufacturing unit aims at sustainable development. “Every initiative of us is not only green, but also lean. Green makes business sense and we look at lean as a long term strategy extending beyond the walls of our factory. We have worked in all aspects of green, not only

38

Megha Roy Features Writer megha.roy@publish-industry.net

Maria Jerin Features Writer maria.jerin@publish-industry.net

on processes but also on products, people, and culture.” Further, he believes, “Innovation is the approach and not improvement, for lean and green to co-exist.”

Lean approach Since the primary objective of the facility is to go lean, the management has incorporated few policies on the same.

Elaborating this, Shariyarr says, “In 2010, a group of nine manufacturing units, including us, had launched the first Hybrid National Manufacturing Cluster in Pune, under the aegis of Confederation of Indian Industries (CII). The aim of this cluster was to adopt best manufacturing practices for

EM | Jul 2015

M A N A G E M E N T | C O M PA N Y P R O F I L E

“Innovation is the approach and not improvement, for lean and green to co-exist” Hussain Shariyarr, Senior Vice President—Operations, Godrej Appliances

enhancing the operational efficiency of these units. We had a road map to follow and we did well on 5S, total employee involvement, inventory management, quality management, single-piece flow manufacturing, etc. We have extended it and currently, we have our supplier-clusters running.” He further explains, “We believe suppliers shops are an extension of our own shop floor. We have taken them on the board completely for every initiative. We are quite successful in transforming them into lean & green.”

“The involvment and passion of the employees are the USP of the plant” Sunil Ramchandra Beloshe, Assistant General Manager & Plant Head—Manufacturing Godrej Appliances

Single-piece flow manufacturing Speaking on the lean concepts in the shop floor, Sunil Ramchandra Beloshe, Assistant General Manager & Plant Head—Manufacturing, Godrej Appliances, said, “We follow kaizen & 5S, and flow manufacturing concepts such as SMED (Single Minute Exchange Die process), Poka Yoke, JIT and My Machine that are part of our Cluster Learnings. Our aim is to involve all employees in these activities.” He further adds, “5S implementation has helped to change non-linear, zig-zag flow of material to single-piece linear flow. Supply chain concepts like JIT has reduced raw material inventory by co-locating suppliers.”

The shop floor has both low cost automation as well as complete integrated lines. “We believe more in low cost automations coupled with manual operations rather than completely integrated lines. We have our own process engineering team that designs and implements low cost automation as per the need in the production lines. Integrated large scale automation consumes more resource in terms of spare parts, electricity, and other consumables. So, we are judicious, we have invested in areas where we get substantial gain in terms of productivity, quality and reliability,” explains Shariyarr.

Mind-power productivity “We measure mind-power productivity instead of manpower productivity,” avers Shariyarr. According to him, the company encourages every worker to participate in improvement activities and implement his/her own ideas. “Last year, we had 99.68% participation. So far, in the journey, we have 13.4 kaizen per employee. We classify their ideas in different levels as

EM | Jul 2015

identified by the kaizen committee. The best among them demonstrates a presentation on their ideas. Hence, they develop communication skills.”

Beloshe believes that the involvement and passion of the employees is the USP of the plant. “For kaizen & 5S, we have 16 zonal coordinates, who takes care of implementing these concepts, apart from their regular routine. Every month, we have our own internal competition. The top three kaizens are recognised through a cash award.” Adding further on training & skill development activities, Shariyarr says, “We recruit two levels of operators – qualified or diploma holders and non qualified operators. Keeping the qualification in mind focussed training programmes were developed to develop skill levels in each of them.We also translate this into a skill and experience matrix which monitors their future growth and development.”

Women on shop floor The facility has 100 women employees working under the same roof. According to Shariyarr, “We take only graduate women. They are not only at par with their men co-workers, but are better at intricate jobs like soldering, small assembly operations, etc. Involvement of women in the team has brought cultural transformation in the shop floor,” he believes.

In this regard, Beloshe adds, “Currently, the whole electronic assembly line is operated by women. We don’t drive them to take too laborious job.” Sharing her thoughts on the same, one of the women employees said, “I have been working in the AC line for more than a year. It feels great that we are working on the same platform as our male counterparts. The physical tasks we perform, not only make us confident, but also help us understand the process of manufacturing and production.”

39

C O M PA N Y P R O F I L E | M A N A G E M E N T

Underlying the idea of ‘reduce, reuse and recycling’, the company has taken many initiatives to keep the environment clean and green

Integrated safety culture Safety has been given the paramount importance. This was to build a worry-free, stress-free environment on the shop floor.

On this, Shariyarr explains that there was a shift made, away from a bureaucratic safety culture to an integrated safety culture.

He further highlights, “Safety is normally measured in terms of number of accidents, which is a reactive approach, rather than a proactive approach. We put forward a thought of having a safety quotient in place titled ‘Departmental Safety Score’ that helped us achieve an ownership and accountability culture. It creates a benchmark and compares safety in departments, based on both quantitative and qualitative measures. It brings transparency and promotes hazardous identification & reporting of near misses with self-audit from workmen and supervisors.”

Lean can be green Underlying the idea of ‘reduce, reuse and recycling’, the company has taken many initiatives to keep the environment clean and green. It has incorporated evaporative cooling system rather than air conditioners, producer gas in place of fossil fuel, light pipe for dark areas, solar heating for quality lab, composite door substitute to imported pre-coated metallic door and 100% recycling of all non-hazardous waste.

“We have monitored all our waste completely across the location and implemented the 5S concept to sustain and maintain it. We have rechristened the scrap yard into a waste

40

management and control department. It operates like a mini workshop and recycles everything from wood, paper, plastics, metals, including hazardous waste like polyurethane foam. We use 25% of our energy from renewable sources that includes solar and bio-gas. As such, no fossil fuel is used here. Our aim is to become zero hazardous waste-to-land fill by 2016,” says Shariyarr.

Serving the society The campus is bounded with a rich flora and fauna culture.

Elaborating on this, Shariyarr says, “As a first step, it was decided to develop a plant nursery at the factory. Also, a green house was set up to nurture plants. A flora and fauna gallery was set up to showcase the various animals and insect species that co-exist on the campus. In fact, we have built a water reservoir for use during scarcity. The campus also sets guidelines for green future such as hydrophonics, urban farming and skyscraper farming.”

The plant employees are involved in community engagement programs which focus on creating awareness on enviornment conservation, personal hygiene, sanitation and safety in day to day life. “The National flag was hoisted at the entrance of the plant. The only reason of doing this was to make our employees realise that the purpose of coming to the factory was not limited to earning their daily bread; it also meant to nation building through manufacturing,” concluded Shariyarr. ☐ > MORE@CLICK EM01723 | www.efficientmanufacturing.in

EM | Jul 2015

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M A N A G E M E N T | S T R AT E G I E S

Driving productivity on the shop floor These days, manufacturing units need to take a hard look at implementing programs for constant productivity increase.

Productivity improvement can come from labour productivity and resource productivity, which includes asset productivity and yield. The article briefs on the areas targeted in driving productivity and waste elimination Indian companies are witnessing the benefits of increased productivity in the shop floor. There is merit in moving away from the low-cost, low-productivity cycle. Market forces are expecting higher quality standards and competition is resulting in shorter product life cycles. Thus, there are always changes on the shop floor. Constant change makes it difficult to continue a model where people slowly learn from â&#x20AC;&#x153;experienceâ&#x20AC;?.

At the same time, labour market is undergoing a substantial change. Labour is getting harder to find and attrition levels are

42

Alagu Balaraman Partner & Managing Director â&#x20AC;&#x201C; India Operations CGN & Associates India

high. In future, the cost of labour is likely to increase more rapidly, as the service sector starts making inroads out of the metro centres and costs rise across the board.

Increasing productivity In such a situation, manufacturing units need to take a hard look at implementing programs for constant productivity increase. When one looks at individual lines in the profit & loss

EM | Jul 2015

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M A N A G E M E N T | S T R AT E G I E S

Productivity improvement can come from labour productivity and resource productivity, which includes asset productivity and yield

statement, productivity increase programs often seem to increase each line item. However, the overall effect is for unit costs to decrease, as volumes more than offset the individual cost increases. This is a much healthier way for a manufacturing unit to stay fit, than it is to conduct a deep cost cutting program.

Increasing productivity is equal to reducing cost.

A severe cost cutting program sometimes cannot be sustained as it expects too much from the people and equipment, without giving them the support needed to sustain it. Also, cost cutting sometimes moves costs from obvious areas to other areas that are less obvious. For example, controlling the cost of manpower can lead to a drop in skills. This could lead to a drop in quality levels and increased rework. Productivity increase, on the other hand, is a virtuous cycle. The increased output per person lowers unit costs. The focus on skilling and the value of each worker leads to a more positive work environment and individual respect, often valued higher than marginal increase in salary.

and waste elimination are design improvements, process capability improvements and people management.

Design improvements Many shop floors have grown organically, adding equipment when required, where space is available. In factories, it was found that layout redesign can help reduce material movement; in one case reducing indirect manpower requirements by 30%.

There was also a spin off reduction in inventory and handling trolleys. The exercise required an industrial engineering study and some simulation to understand loading patterns. The outcome was a very quick return on investment.

Machine settings were another area of opportunity.

However, a quick design of experiments done on the shop floor shows how these settings can be modified to reduce cycle time, leading to increased capacity, reduced inventories and better supply chain response time.

Opportunities

Process capability improvements

So, where exactly are the main opportunities that can be used to drive up productivity and eliminate waste? What are the kinds of tools that are needed? The first question is an easy one: there are so many areas to improve upon and any experienced manufacturing person knows what these are.

Productivity improvement can come from labour productivity and resource productivity, which includes asset productivity and yield. The areas typically targeted in driving productivity

Process capability improvements make things more predictable. If the production process is highly predictable, schedules can be made tighter, freeing up more capacity. Work plans can be prepared, ensuring material and labour is correctly available, without waste. There is a lot that can be done to increase process capability in the shop floor today. The machine settings discussed earlier help tremendously. Also, ensuring machine uptime is critical. Many machines that are

44

EM | Jul 2015

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M A N A G E M E N T | S T R AT E G I E S

Supervisors and managers have to learn to ask the “right” questions to drive the right behaviours

poorly maintained, or have been bought second hand, require high levels of skill to ensure their availability is good.

A good maintenance plan involves not just preventive maintenance, but also a good root cause analysis and control mechanism implementation.

Finally, planning plays a huge role in impacting process capability. Unfortunately, this is often ignored. As a result, machines idle because all the material required for a job is not available. The quality of planning in our factories is very poor.

The outcome has been goods produced that are not required just then. They sit in finished goods stores.

People management

small but important management actions. These, in turn, can lower absenteeism and reduce churn.

Increasing the percentage of permanent labour usually results in higher skilled people for continuous investment in them to upgrade their skills. However, individual skill is not enough to meet the requirements. There have to be the correct metrics to govern the shop floor and a review mechanism that has the discipline to lock in the new practices. For example, with superior planning methods, it is more important for a line supervisor to review shift-wise plan versus actual production for each machine and line than it is to look at that day’s customer order fulfilment by the plant.

Supervisors and managers have to learn to ask the “right” questions to drive the right behaviours. The metrics need to be supported by a governance mechanism that helps the people on the line spot errors and to correct them. Simply doing the first is not enough. The biggest changes happen, when the people change.

Both the topics covered so far require superior skills. They require design & processes, but to operate them, better skilled people on the shop floor and in support functions are essential.

This is not necessarily about a whole lot of training. To start with, we need to have people available. Today, in larger manufacturing hubs, labour attrition is a concern. Also, contract Conclusion labour percentages tend to be high, lowering the interest in Under the ‘Make in India’ initiative, the National investing in people.

When people are treated as commodity resources, they, Manufacturing Policy has several goals, one of which is to too, tend to have a similar attitude towards employers. Often, enhance the global competitiveness of Indian manufacturing. there is a poor understanding of the reasons for absenteeism All goals can be substantially helped by changes in and a poor system of retaining people. Absenteeism, of course, Government policy and procedures. However, it cannot only strikes back as increased overtime and lowered productivity. be done by the Government. There is much to change in our It is not uncommon for workers to be earning 10-15% of their shop floors. Driving productivity and eliminating waste is a total wages from overtime. The HR department conducting a good place to start. ☐ > MORE@CLICK EM01724 | www.efficientmanufacturing.in survey and a root cause analysis of absenteeism can trigger

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EM | Jul 2015

Image courtesy - Cranedge

M AT E R I A L H A N D L I N G | F O C U S

Industrial crane safety Most organisations subscribe to the view that industrial accidents or incidents do not just happen; rather they are a result of unsafe working conditions or unsafe acts of operators. The article highlights the ideas on how these accidents can be avoided with proper safety measures in industrial cranes.

All industrial facilities and construction sites use some form of equipment to manufacture goods, build structures or move material. The equipment used could be workshop equipment (lathes, power presses, drills, compressors, hand tools) and/or material handling equipment such as forklifts, mobile cranes or EOT (Electric Overhead Traveling) cranes.

Unfortunately, several accidents occur every year while operating this equipment. While many of these accidents are serious in nature, some accidents also turn out to be fatal. The good news, however, is most of these accidents can be avoided with proper safety measures.

By definition, an accident is an undesirable event that results in an injury or causes ill-health. An incident, on the

48

Kedar V Mehendale Director & CEO Cranedge

other hand, is an undesirable or an unplanned event that delays or prevents a task from completion and which may be the cause of an injury, illness, and/or property damage of varying proportions.

Most organisations subscribe to the view that industrial accidents or incidents do not just happen; rather they are a result of unsafe working conditions or unsafe acts of operators.

Basically, industrial accidents caused due to unsafe working conditions are the result of a failure on the part of the organisation to lay down safe systems of work, safe operating procedures, codes of conduct, and a failure to adequately train & supervise the plant operating personnel.

The causes for industrial accidents can be broadly classified

EM | Jul 2015

F O C U S | M AT E R I A L H A N D L I N G

into the following two categories: first category is the undesired conditions that could be in the form of untrained operators, improperly maintained machinery, insufficient lighting conditions, etc. Such circumstances should be identified and addressed on priority basis to prevent accidents or incidents from occurring in industrial facilities. Another cause for accidents is the inherent hazards in the plants or the nature of business, such as working at heights, working with hazardous chemicals, etc.

Crane safety requirements A crane is essentially a material handling equipment that is used in most industrial facilities and construction sites that can potentially be subject to an accident. Because of its utility and all-pervasiveness in industries, it is important to ensure safety while working with a crane. Whether fixed or mobile, cranes are driven manually or by electrical power. Since this involves movement of several parts, sub-assemblies and involves electric power, there is a strong possibility of an accident if it is not handled in a proper manner.

First and foremost, the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) recommendations must be reviewed prior to the installation/set-up and use of a crane. Furthermore, all OEM recommendations must be complied with. All new and altered cranes must be tested to ensure proper hoisting and lowering, trolley travel, bridge travel, proper functioning of limit switches and locking & safety devices. A rated load test must also be performed. For new cranes an overload test should be performed as per the design standards.

Modifications are allowed only if the approval is documented in the written form. The rated load of a crane must be clearly marked on each side of the crane, and if the crane has more than one hoisting unit, each hoist must have its rated load marked on it or its load block and the marking must be clearly legible from the ground or floor.

EM | Jul 2015

Overhead and gantry cranes All overhead cranes must advocate their safe usage. Various standards have laid down design requirements for the construction of the crane cabin and its associated electrical controls, walkways, ladders & stairways, bridge & trolley buffers, hoists, trolley & bridge brakes, electrical components, hoisting equipment, lighting and warning devices. As a safe practice a minimum clearance of 75-100 mm overhead and 50 mm laterally is generally provided between the crane and obstructions. This should allow clear space for crane erection & maintenance. In case of gantry cranes, where walkways or passages are provided, obstructions must not be placed in a way that compromises safety of plant personnel due to movements of the crane.

A warning signal should be provided for each crane equipped with a motorised travelling mechanism. When two or more cranes are used to lift a load, a qualified & responsible person must be in charge of the operation. This person must analyse the operation and instruct all personnel involved in the proper positioning, rigging of the load and the movements to be made. Replacement of wire rope must be of the same size, grade and construction as the original rope furnished by the OEM. Any change must be approved by the OEM & wire rope manufacturer. Wherever exposed to temperatures at which fibre cores would be damaged, rope having an independent wire-rope or wire-strand core must be used. Loads must be attached to hooks by means of slings or other approved devices of adequate capacity & design. Slings conditions must be checked frequently. All hooks must be equipped with a safety latch to prevent loads from moving off the hook. If a load is supported by more than one part of rope, the tension in the various parts must be equalised. Rope clip attached with U-bolts must have the U-bolts on the dead or short end of the rope. Spacing and number of all types of clips must be in accordance with the clip manufacturerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s recommendations.

49

M AT E R I A L H A N D L I N G | F O C U S

A preventative maintenance program based on the OEM recommendations must be established

Rope fittings must be applied as recommended by the rope or crane manufacturer. Rope socketing must be done in the manner specified by the manufacturer of the assembly. Hands must remain free, especially when climbing and articles that are too large to be carried in pockets or belts must be lifted and lowered by hand line.

Inspection requirements Since large and heavy objects are often transported by overhead/gantry cranes, hence routine inspections are necessary to ensure continued operation and overhead crane safety. Overhead and gantry cranes require two different types of inspections. Regular inspections are done daily to monthly intervals, while periodic inspections are completed at monthly to annual intervals. The purpose of the two inspection types is to examine critical components of the crane and to determine the extent of wear, deterioration or malfunction and take up repairs/replacements. All cranes must be inspected prior to initial use, prior to each days use, frequently, and periodically.

All new and altered cranes must be inspected prior to initial use. The inspection must ensure that the crane meets the requirements of the OEM and the design/safety standard. It is required to determine the appropriate frequency for frequent inspections based on the crane duty application. All cranes must be thoroughly inspected at least annually. Any shortcomings or deficiencies must be corrected prior to use. t Monthly - Cranes in regular use (those used at least once a month) must be inspected at least monthly using the check list and any shortcomings or deficiencies must be corrected prior to use. t Prior to use - A crane which has been idle for a period of one month or more, must be thoroughly inspected before being placed into service.

50

Maintenance requirements A preventative maintenance program based on the OEM recommendations must be established. The crane to be maintained/repaired must be located where it will cause the least interference with other operating cranes and operations in the area. All electrical controls & switchgear must be at the off position and locked out. The main or emergency switch must be open and locked-out in the open position. Warning or out-of-order signs must be placed on the crane and on the floor beneath or on the hook where they are visible from the ground level. All guards must be reinstalled, safety devices reactivated and maintenance equipment removed prior to placing the crane back into operation. Where other cranes are in operation on the same runway, rail stops or other suitable means must be provided to prevent interference with the idle crane. Adjustments and repairs must be done only by the electrical shop, or by competent personnel only. All adjustments must be such that they retain the proper functioning of components.

Crane operator trainings Only designated trained persons should be allowed to operate a crane. A crane operator training must be incorporated in the training calendar to ensure that all crane operators receive the training at least once a year or before they operate a crane for the first time. The training programme should include information on the best practices of crane operations & load handling including actual practical crane operations by the operator which must be assessed by the trainer. â&#x2DC;? > MORE@CLICK EM01725 | www.efficientmanufacturing.in

EM | Jul 2015

CNC & MACHINE CONTROLS | TECHNOLOGY

Programming multi-function machines The case study discusses the various ways to address some of the key challenges in programming and utilising complex multi-function machines with the latest CAM and simulation software By combining multiple machining operations such as milling and turning in a single machine, multiple-function machine tools reduce the number of setups required to process parts. Saving a considerable amount of time in the overall process, it also reduces positioning errors possible in multiple setups. One machine is able to do the work of multiple, separate machines. The cost comparison of multiple simpler machines, each with an operator, to a multi-function machine can be highly positive in favour of the more advanced machine.

However, multi-function machines make extra demands on CNC programming, post-processing and part program validation in order to make the most of these more challenging machines. Mastering this complexity is key to achieving the additional levels of productivity and realising an effective return on investment.

52

Multi-functional machines More and more companies are looking at multi-function machines, realising they can combine multiple manufacturing steps into a single machine with a single setup. This consolidation can often achieve substantial financial savings by reducing overhead costs and increasing productivity.

It can be a challenge to generate a computer numerical control (CNC) program for a machine tool that has multiple machining devices with combinations of milling heads and turning turrets. These machines may have live tooling in a turret and may just as easily have a turning tool in a multi-axis head. They can often handle multiple workpiece positions such as two lathe spindles that can also be programmed as milling rotary tables and which can allow an inprocess part to

EM | Jul 2015

Detailed 3-D Simulation Graphics

TNC controls from HEIDENHAIN have long featured practical functions for the production of single parts and series.

The new 3-D simulation graphics of the TNC 640 are particularly helpful: They precisely display the workpiece and provide a significant preview of the actual machining process when milling or turning. Several new view options expose a precise and freely definable view of details. In this way, the TNC helps with the reliable recognition of faulty information or problematic machining processes prior to workpiece machining.

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CNC & MACHINE CONTROLS | TECHNOLOGY

To eliminate time wasted ‘cutting air’, a CAM system needs to manage the state of the in-process workpiece (IPW) from one operation to the next

be transferred from one work-holding position to another.

Simultaneous and synchronised cutting becomes even more challenging as cutting tools can often reach more than one part location or spindle at a time. Keeping track of the current state of the workpiece between cutting operations, as well as from spindle to spindle, can be critical for generating efficient cutter paths.

the multiple device channels displayed in parallel and add codes called synchronisation codes or marks into the code stream.

With the Synchronization Manager in NX CAM from Siemens PLM Software, the CNC programmer can insert synchronisation events and/or dwell events in the graphical display.

G-code driven machining simulation: Unless the detailed synchronisation at the G-code level is to be done outside of the CAM programming system as a separate and later task, it is necessary to have direct access to a view of the postprocessor Programming multi-function machines output code (the “G-code”), while using the synchronisation CAM processors for multi-function machines: Multi-function application. This can be difficult if the postprocessor is a machines cover a wide range of possible configurations. Clearly, separate application or not tightly integrated within the CAM a CAM system needs to offer the range of capabilities available software. The immediate access to an integrated postprocessor on the machine in one software package. Thus, a milling CAM also allows the CAM system to offer machine tool simulation system won’t be of much use if the machine offers milling and that’s driven off of the output from the postprocessor and not turning on the same machine – as many do. Depending on the from the internal tool path data. Machine simulations of the machine configuration, programs might require any internal tool path are useful for basic checking and provide combination of turning, 3-axis milling, 3+2 positional milling some level of confidence, but some CAM systems can and full 5-axis milling. additionally offer simulation driven by the postprocessed Synchronised tool paths: On multi-function machines, one output. Especially on advanced multi-function machines, workpiece is often addressed by more than one cutting tool at simulation is important, and the availability of G-code driven the same time, say in a pinch turning mode with turning tools simulation makes sure that the effects of postprocessing are tracking on the one part from a lower turret and a top head (or included and accounted for. turret) or completely different and independent operations Postprocessing: Postprocessing is a critical element of the may be performed by different heads or turrets on the same or multi-function machine tool programming solution. Such a different spindles. In each case, the synchronisation between machine can often require multiple postprocessor functions to each operation becomes critical. In simple cases, it may be address various combinations of milling and turning. sufficient to time one operation to begin on one of the One approach is to create one large postprocessor that strings machine’s channels at the same time. However, maximum the entire set together. The challenge with this approach is that productivity might be achieved by timing different motion the one postprocessor is very complex, hard to write and even channels at a finer level, so that one operation begins on one of harder for someone else to edit. Another method is to the machine’s channels at the point when another operation is arrange a system of postprocessors – one for each key partially complete. This would require synchronisation at the function and device – and then connect these with a “link G-code level. postprocessor”. The result is a logical structure that is easier to One way to address this is to see the intended CNC code for develop and edit later.

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TECHNOLOGY | CNC & MACHINE CONTROLS

In-process workpiece: To eliminate time wasted “cutting air”, a CAM system needs to manage the state of the in-process workpiece (IPW) from one operation to the next. As material from the workpiece is removed by a tool path, the result becomes the blank for the next operation. Cutting tools can then be driven to safely approach the part in rapid mode to within a predefined minimum clear distance before switching into a feed rate. In these complex multi-function machines with multiple work-holding positions, there is a need to transfer the in-process workpiece definition from one location to another, say from the main spindle to the sub spindle. The machining operations performed on the workpiece in the main spindle, becomes the blank for the workpiece on the sub spindle.

Coordinate systems: When working with multi-function machines, it is important to be able to select the most appropriate or useful coordinate system for each set of operations. Being able to arrange a separate coordinate system for each device in the CAM setup can make it easier to program and much easier to edit and debug the CNC programs. While creating an operation, the programmer then simply chooses

the correct device and each will have its own machining coordinate system (MCS) for its respective program zero.

Programming or production: Highly skilled machinists with very detailed knowledge can and do prepare very efficient part programs right at the machine tool using the controller interface. However, this means that the machine itself can become a part of the programming and debugging system so that it ties up the machine while being programmed. But programs prepared in CAM systems are also typically validated at the machine tool, and the setup work for each new job is another lengthy task that takes up machine time. One way to overcome this challenge is to use a virtual machine – a functional copy of the real machine tool and its controller that runs only in software, but is more complete and accurate than a typical machining simulation system. The idea is that the virtual machine can behave just like the real one – its 3D model of the machine, workpiece, tooling and any work-holding devices, are driven on the computer screen by software from the real controller.☐ Courtesy: Siemens PLM Software > MORE@CLICK EM01726 | www.efficientmanufacturing.in

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S O L I D C A R B I D E TO O L S | T E C H N O L O G Y

Know your geometry Geometry is a vital factor when looking to optimise solid carbide drill performance. Only by ensuring that the drill offers geometry that best suits the specific application, engineers can expect an efficient, trouble-free process.

The correct selection of drills offering geometry designed to match the application can enhance tool life, quality and productivity. However, how many manufacturing engineers fully appreciate the facts and benefits of features such as point geometries, flute forms, helix angles, chisel lengths, lands, back tapers, margin widths and web thicknesses?

Economics add up Hole-making is the most common metalworking operation, so improving drilling is a measure that can pay off well in modern machining economics. A simple review of the part, set-up and holes required will deliver initial guidance regarding tool selection. Beyond this, basic parameters always include

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hole diameter, depth, tolerance, surface finish, material, tool holding, available spindle speed, available power, set-up stability and batch size. The requirement for any secondary operations, such as chamfering, counterboring, reaming and threading/tapping, must also be considered.

Solid carbide drills provide the best combination of penetration rate and high precision holes. Although this type of tool represents mature technology, recent developments have brought the solid carbide drill to new levels, thanks in many respects to evolutions in geometry.

It is well documented that a successful drill design is one that properly forms and transports the chips, conveying the associated heat away from the cutting zone. The number one cause of premature drill failure is chip accumulation, which if

EM | Jul 2015

T E C H N O L O G Y | S O L I D C A R B I D E TO O L S

Solid carbide drills provide the best combination of penetration rate and high precision holes

left unchecked can lead to the deterioration of hole quality and/or tolerance, as well as thermal tool wear and even tortional breakage. Another leading cause of premature drill failure results from the heat generated by process friction. Only by ensuring the drill offers geometry that best suits the specific application can engineers expect an efficient, trouble-free process.

additional cutting lips that aid chip formation and control.

When comparing drills with split points and drills with high performance point geometry, among the primary differences is that the secondary cutting edges on the latter typically start to curve away from the direction of drill rotation instead of being straight. The intention here is both to further assist chip control and eradicate stress points that may materialise due to any sharp corners.

Keep it constant Astute flutes Firstly, the drill’s web construction, in association with the land values, enhances tool strength. Most drills feature either a constant rate of increase in web thickness, or a constant web thickness.

When performing drilling operations the tool rotates and moves axially into the component. As chips are generated, the drill’s helix assists chip movement away from the cutting edge and out of the hole. When a drill features a web that increases in thickness toward the back of the flute, the chip area reduces as the tool moves deeper into the workpiece. This depreciation in flute area can thwart chip transfer and bring about drill failure. To side-step this issue, engineers should source the latest solid carbide drills, which typically feature constant web construction. The ideology here is to make the flute area consistent so that the chip does not have to travel ‘uphill’ when exiting the component being cut.

Stay on point Point geometries are arguably the most important feature when it comes to drilling as these are what first engage with the workpiece. It is common knowledge, for example, that chisel length accounts for the majority of thrust required for component penetration. Shortening the length of chisel via web thinning means that the thrust is reduced and penetration is boosted. This technique can also be deployed to create

EM | Jul 2015

Clearly, in any drill design, flute form is vital to performance optimisation. Flute shape governs the drill’s ability to form and transport the chips (and heat) away from the cutting zone. In the precise geometry of a high performance solid carbide drill, flutes are defined scientifically to maximise cutting performance.

The effectiveness of chip formation is determined by several process parameters that include component material, spindle speed and feed rate. However, other influencing factors include flute form, point geometry and style, and helix angle.

Many high performance solid carbide drills take advantage of innovative flute form design. Concave lips, for example, are often favoured as they create short and tightly curled chips that flow up the drill more easily.

Among other trends used by drill manufacturers is to try using different shapes of drill grinding wheels. The resulting innovative flute forms have the effect of modifying the chip flow, consequently impacting the potential of the drill to transport chips.

Improving margins Back taper and margin widths are two more important geometrical features that impact drill performance. The margin is what guides the drill through the inner hole wall, and the

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S O L I D C A R B I D E TO O L S | T E C H N O L O G Y

The shape of the cutting edge and effective clearance offer low cutting forces, improved chip control and higher penetration rates

because, where precision is required, a thinner margin width is needed to reduce rubbing on the inner wall.

The job of the back taper is to reduce heat accumulation due to friction during drilling. Most high specification solid carbide drills will feature high value back tapers as these are proven to create more relief while the drill is engaged with the component, thus minimising heat.

Latest innovations in solid carbide drills

mm diameter through-holes for thread tapping in engine plates made from low alloy steel (using MQL), CoroDrill 860 is offering 62 per cent gains in both productivity and tool life against a competitor product, according to the company.

Penetration rates have increased from 387 to 627 mm/min.

Similarly, on a chamfered 8.5 mm diameter through-hole in a wheel hub made from an unalloyed steel casting of 255HB hardness (using flood oil coolant), CoroDrill 860 is offering 98 per cent greater productivity. In another example of the toolâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s strength for increased reliability at high cutting data, the same product is providing productivity gains of 100 per cent when drilling 10.50 mm through-holes in low alloy steel (stacked) drive axles.

The new solid carbide drill from Sandvik Coromant, CoroDrill 860, which is a high-end drill, is intended particularly for long chipping and low carbon steel machining (ISO P), and it tackles the problems encountered previously with chip control and excessive cutting forces. The shape of the cutting Applied knowledge edge and effective clearance offer low cutting forces, improved For any engineers wondering exactly how much can be chip control and higher penetration rates. Furthermore, the redesigned rounding of the cutting edge and the corners of the saved using the latest solid carbide drills, the Drilling App for drill tip lessen the risk of edge chipping and improve coating iPhones is a handy tool. The Drilling App from Sandvik adhesion. The drill point itself is designed for self-centering, Coromant offers a quick and easy way for machine shops to while a reinforced drill corner adds strength, which ensures calculate cycle times and costs for all drilling and tapping process security far beyond that of more universal drills. operations. With the input of a few simple parameters such as Ultimately, new geometry combined with an innovative flute drill diameter, cutting speed, spindle speed and feed rate, the shape offers a cutting edge optimised for effective chip App provides machine shops not only with reliable data such as cycle times and cost per hole, but with other useful clearance, even at increased rates of penetration. information like ISO tolerances for bore and shaft, and links to online support via You Tube videos or the company website.

Performance By experimenting with data, the App highlights how small The automotive sector is one of the many sectors where changes can have a big impact in the results obtained. â&#x2DC;? machine shops are set to benefit. Here, customer case studies Courtesy: Sandvik Coromant > MORE@CLICK EM01727 | www.efficientmanufacturing.in are providing impressive results. For instance, drilling 6.90

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I M AGE C OURT ES Y: Airbus

A E R O S PA C E M A N U FA C T U R I N G | T E C H N O L O G Y

TARGETING AEROSPACE CHALLENGES Currently, the Indian industry is facing challenges in competency development and establishing world-class technologies to meet the stringent aerospace. The part-two series of the article briefs on the technical requirements for the aerospace applications.

Godrej Aerospace, a division of Godrej & Boyce Manufacturing, started way back in 1985. The company is manufacturing components and assemblies for the aerospace industry. The product groups cater to space, defence and aviation industry in India and abroad customers. It deals with various exotic materials & welding techniques during the manufacturing process.

Technical requirements in aerospace Low thickness: The main challenge in aerospace requirement is thinned sheet welding (normally 0.6 mm to maximum 4.00 mm). Distortion-free welding can be achieved only through the lowest possible heat input and effective cooling system. Any distortion generated in the welding process will have huge impact on the further processes. Also, the acceptance

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level of radiography testing is 1/10 T, that means, eventually the limit of any indication in the 0.6 mm sheet is only 60 microns and in many cases, even repair is not allowed.

Control on weld penetration & reinforcements: Unlike other industry in aerospace, the depth of penetration is controlled and measured in microns. Measurement of the same is normally carried out through radiography images.

Contoured structure: Almost 99% of structures are 3D contoured. Due to its complex shape, the weld set-up and welding process needs modern fixtures and technology.

Challenges in welding techniques The nature of welding in the aeronautical industry is characterised by low unit production, high unit cost, extreme reliability, and severe operating conditions.

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The nature of welding in the aeronautical industry is characterised by low unit production, high unit cost, extreme reliability, and severe operating conditions

I MA G E C O URT ES Y: Airbus

T E C H N O L O G Y | A E R O S PA C E M A N U FA C T U R I N G

These characteristics point towards more expensive and performed. This also helps to avoid any foreign particle more concentrated heat sources, such as plasma arc, laser contamination, which is absolutely not permitted. beam and electron beam welding, as the processes of choice for Foreign particle/object: In many parts or assembly, there is a special post weld inspection required by customer to ensure welding critical components.

The main challenge of welding thin sheet metal no foreign particle is left inside. For example, tubes are subjected parts is distortion due to co-efficient of thermal expansion. to 100% radiographic inspection prior and post welding.

Due to this, the company has developed special jigs and Non-Destructive testing (NDT): Almost all weld joints have fixtures to minimise distortion. While designing fixtures, to be subjected to visual, x-ray and liquid penetrant tests. we have to consider the mass and volume of the part Complex structure and profile of the part and special weld and accordingly decide the materials, which will help geometry together pose challenges for conducting x-ray and absorb the heat input during welding. then to interpret the same. The acceptance standard is as less Wherever possible, welding is carried out by automatic as 1/10th of the thickness of the job, where in 2.0 mm sheet, welding process to get the consistent quality and only 0.2 mm isolated indication is accepted. avoid weld defects. Sometimes, special welding accessories Mock-up or specimen welding: For welding many critical are planned for welding, to take care of complex weld weld joints, mock-up or specimen welding is specified by joint geometries and profiles. Many times, we need to the customer, prior to welding. This mock-up is essentially qualify multiple welding procedures for the same alloy 1:1 replica of the joint, agreed between manufacturer and in the same hardware, because of different material conditions the customer. This is welded in order to ensure that the caused by intermediate heat treatment involved. welding machine, welding manipulator is performing in The company developed its metal joining technology in its order and that the set weld parameters are giving the desired plant like TIG welding, MIG welding, resistance seam results in the weld. This is sort of entire system verification welding, friction welding, laser beam welding, electron beam prior to welding. welding, resistance seam/spot welding, titanium brazing Production Test Coupon (PTC): In some projects, we have and honeycomb brazing. to weld PTC immediately after welding of every joint on the actual hardware. This has to be welded using the same weld parameters and conditions used during welding of the Quality requirements for aerospace welding hardware. This PTC is subjected to same heat treatment Welding environment: Welding condition is the most conditions of the hardware, along with the hardware and same important part of the aerospace welding. Many times, post weld NDT tests. After satisfactory NDT, this PTC is these environmental conditions like room temperature sent for mechanical testing to confirm meeting requirement or humidity levels are specified in the standard or specification. of the project specification like tensile, yield, elongation, The company has special clean rooms, where welding is macro and hardness.

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I MA G E CO URT ES Y: Airbus

A E R O S PA C E M A N U FA C T U R I N G | T E C H N O L O G Y

Heat treatment: Most aerospace assemblies have to undergo intermediate heat treatment, either for stress relief or enhancing material properties or brazing. This also presents challenge for manufacturing, since this process also contributes to distortion.

Hence, for heat treatment of aerospace parts, again some special fixtures are required.

Surface/chemical treatment process: Most parts are subjected to chemical treatment of the part surface for either pre-cleaning prior to welding or post weld cleaning of part.

Destructive testing: Generally, tensile, yield, elongation and hardness tests are required to be done as per the applicable project specification or standard. Sometimes, macro and micro test is also required to be done.

Welding / metal joining process Gas Metal Arc Welding (GMAW): This process is not used extensively in the aviation industry. The drawback for this is that the large size of the heat source (compared with processes such as EBW, LW) causes the welds to have poor mechanical properties. However, it has very wide application in defence products like missiles. This process is largely used for aluminium welding.

Gas Tungsten Arc Welding (GTAW): GTAW can use a more intense heat source than GMAW. Therefore, it can produce welds with less distortion at a similar cost. For most structural critical applications, this process cannot compete with other welding methods, such as electron beam welding or laser beam welding. Tungsten inert gas welding is also known as tungsten arc welding and gas-tungsten arc welding (GTAW) and is currently the most commonly applied joining process in aerospace industry.

Laser Beam Welding (LBW): This process, together with electron beam welding can deliver the most concentrated heat sources for welding, with the advantages of higher accuracy

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Unlike other industry, the aerospace industry is working with very stringent safety margins

and weld quality with negligible distortions.

Electron Beam Welding (EBW): This process presents the advantage over LBW that it has no problems with beam reflection on the molten metal. However, it needs to operate in a vacuum. This characteristic makes this process especially suitable for the welding of titanium alloys that cannot be welded in an open atmosphere. This process is especially recommended when the weld joint are in accessible in other processes. The company welds titanium, copper to copper and copper to nickel joints using EBW process.

Friction Welding (FRW): Friction welding is a completely mechanical solid-phase process in which heat & force generated by friction is used to create the ideal conditions for a high integrity welded joint between similar or dissimilar metals. In its simplest form, friction welding involves holding two components in axial alignment. Then rotate them under pressure causing the interface to heat-up. t First-friction: The components are brought into contact again at an initial low pressure to clean the mating faces, achieve pre-heating and reduce the co-efficient of friction before the second friction takes place. This stage lasts for a predetermined time, depending on the size and nature of the components. It may range from a few hundred milliseconds for the smallest parts up to around 20 seconds for large components. t Second-friction: The pressure is raised to increase the friction between the components. The material then becomes plastic and flows out to form the characteristic flash. This displacement of material or burn-off ensures any contaminants are purged from the weld interface. The end of this stage is usually determined by the amount of displacement from the initial (pre-weld) butted position.

A fixed displacement or constant burn-off can be used or prolonged until the component length reaches a desired value or position burn-off. Alternatively, the second

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I MA G E CO URT ES Y: Airbus

A E R O S PA C E M A N U FA C T U R I N G | T E C H N O L O G Y

t

Generally, parts to be brazed are held together, if required in a fixture, with either foil or alloy paste applied to it. Then, it is loaded into a furnace, preferably in a vacuum furnace and heated to brazing temperature

friction stage can be time controlled in the same way as the first friction. At the end of this stage, the rotation is stopped, usually, as rapidly as possible.

Forge: With rotation stopped, pressure is increased again.

This stage provides additional mechanical working of the joint with no heat input, promoting the refinement of the microstructure. This high pressure is maintained for a predetermined time and then relaxed prior to further machine operations. As before, the duration depends on the size and nature of the components. At the end of this stage, the weld is complete and the part may be unloaded immediately unless flash removal is required.

Finally, as qualification test, it will undergo vibration test, bump test, linear acceleration test, thermo structural test, shock test and finally once again leak test.

Honeycomb brazing

Honeycomb structures are widely used in applications as automotive, packaging, high-pressure containers, lightweight aerospace wing panels and engine nacelles, and hightemperature turbine seals for ground power and aircraft jet engines, taking advantage of honeycombâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s high structural strength with minimum weight. Honeycomb cell size used in such applications typically varies from about 0.031 to 0.125 in (0.8 to 3 mm) diameter. The depth of finish-machined honeycomb Brazing in aerospace varies from less than 0.062 to 0.5 in (1.5 to 13 mm) or greater.

In aerospace, the company uses induction brazing in Since, they form capillary paths, these vertical nodes are brazed vacuum atmosphere. Generally, parts to be brazed are held during the brazing cycle in addition to the joint that forms together, if required in a fixture, with either foil or alloy paste between the base of the honeycomb and the backing member applied to it. Then, it is loaded into a furnace, preferably in a (support ring, etc) to which it is being joined. vacuum furnace and heated to brazing temperature. Mainly, Honeycomb seal problems: A primary concern in honeycomb the requirements are SS to SS brazing with nickel based filler brazing is the quantity of brazing filler metal (BFM) used, material and titanium brazing with aluminium as filler material because it has a major effect on the rubbing/wear characteristics in vacuum furnace. Main application of brazing parts is of the honeycomb and blade tip in service. Problems can occur impellers for turbo pumps, bosses for junction box in aircraft in both aircraft and ground-based power turbines due to and wings & fins for space applications. improper application of BFM to bond the honeycomb to its The basic requirement is that proper fixture should hold substrate. Honeycomb and backing substrate materials must the jobs without affecting the profiles and contours at elevated be thoroughly cleaned prior to brazing. Honeycomb temperature. Secondly, there is a requirement of high level of traditionally is bonded to its substrate using nickel-base BFM cleaning and handling of jobs after cleaning with protection, in the form of powder, paste, transfer tape or amorphous foil. in controlled environment.

After resistance welding the honeycomb to the backing, powder Quality requirements: The company has developed a special can be added to the honeycomb by hand (known as salt and testing method by Acoustic topography to check the soundness pepper technique). â&#x2DC;? of the brazing inside the pockets. The brazing area shall pass Courtesy: Godrej Aerospace the requirement of 95% brazed area and, also, it shall > MORE@CLICK EM01728 | www.efficientmanufacturing.in pass the pressure test and leak test as acceptance test.

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C U T T I N G TO O L S | T E C H N O L O G Y

Machinning ISO-S materials in aerospace

Teun van Asten Engineer, Marketing Services: Solid Milling Seco Tools

Since HRSA maintains strength at high temperatures and offers superior creep and corrosion resistance, the alloys make up as much as 50% of the weight of a modern aerospace engine.

Applications of ISO-S materials in aerospace turbines are similar to those in turbines used in energy production. In many cases, however, aerospace tolerances are tighter. For example, Seco develops special tools to machine the fir-tree-shaped root profile of turbine blades. Root profile tolerances for some energy applications are in the range of 10 microns, while tolerances for some aerospace profiles are as tight as 0-5 microns (0 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 0.005).

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Structural titanium In addition to application in the low-temperature sections of turbines, titaniumâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s light weight and strength is exploited in structural aerospace parts, such as landing gears. By nature, the landing gear components are massive and strong. They are very heavy when manufactured from standard materials.

Newer, lighter and stronger titanium alloys used to produce lighter landing gears are more difficult to machine than the titanium alloys previously applied. One such recently developed alloy is titanium 5553, so called, because, it includes 5% aluminium, 5% molybdenum, 5% vanadium, and 3%

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C U T T I N G TO O L S | T E C H N O L O G Y

Maximising the benefits of the high-performance alloys requires the use of advanced tools and application strategies

chromium content. The benefit of titanium 5553 is its high tensile strength: 1160 MPa compared to 910 MPa for Ti6Al4V reference material. The higher tensile strength limits cutting speeds to levels 50% lower than those applied with Ti6Al4V.

Stacked alloys If a single ISO-S material poses machining difficulty, processing two different materials together offers an even greater challenge. Some aerospace applications involve machining components composed of stacks of differing materials. The challenge is to machine the “sandwich” or “hybrid” with adequate chip control and no vibration or burrs.

A typical example would be a combination of titanium and stainless steel. Stainless steel and titanium do share some properties; both are relatively high in strength and have adhesive properties in that the cut material tends to stick to the endmill.

The company’s solution for machining an engine mount featuring a titanium 6Al4V/austentic stainless steel stack was application of a carbide Jabro JHP 770 tool specially designed for machining titanium. The tool incorporates differential flute spacing, radial relief and a specially formed chip space. A through-coolant channel minimises work piece adhesion and clears chips. In machining stacked materials, the tool passed first through the stainless steel then through the titanium. The parameters for more difficult-to-machine material (titanium) were applied throughout. In recognition of the alloy’s low thermal conductivity, a moderate cutting speed of 50 m/min was used, with a feed of 0.036 mm/rev feed, and a 3 mm depth of cut, descending in circular interpolation.

HSS alternative Despite its performance advantages in many situations, carbide tooling is not the only way to effectively machine ISO-S materials. In some cases, high-speed steel cutters are a more productive and cost-effective choice.

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Many large aerospace components, such as landing gear parts, are machined from solid billets of titanium or stainless steel. For these parts, high-performance HSS tools up to 50 mm in diameter are capable of removing large volumes of material. The HSS tools are very effective on low-rpm, high-torque machines for effective roughing and even finishing of titaniums and stainless steel. The ability to employ large diameters and widths of cut enables the tools to provide competitive metal removal rates even when run at lower speeds than those achievable with carbide tools.

An example of an advanced HSS tool is the Jabro JCO710 HSS-Co cutter with 8% cobalt content and a hardness of 67 HRC. The tool features polished flutes to reduce friction and edge build-up, and a variable face profile geometry to cut light and reduce the risk of chatter that causes unacceptable surface roughness values. These cutters have provided more than 800 minutes of tool life, when applied at a manufacturer producing large titanium parts.

ISO-S milling strategies Carefully engineered combinations of tools and cutting strategies facilitate productive and cost-effective machining of ISO-S materials. One approach is high-feed milling, a method that transfers cutting forces from the radial to the axial direction, combining small axial depths of cut with high table feeds. The technique produces a thinner chip that carries the heat away from the cutting edge and reduces cutting forces, minimising vibration and stabilising machining operation. In addition to reducing the generation of heat and extending tool life, high-feed milling also provides a high metal removal rates: up to 200 – 300% faster than traditional milling.

High-feed milling can be employed with a variety of tools.

From its global Jabro endmill line, for example, Seco offers JHF180 tools that are designed for machining harder steels and cobalt chrome alloys in the 48 - 62 HRC range. The tools feature a rigid 0.9-degree tapered neck design that reduces tool deflection, enables deep cavity milling, and improves surface

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T E C H N O L O G Y | C U T T I N G TO O L S

T E C H N O L O G Y | C U T T I N G TO O L S

finish. Tool geometry is designed to eject the chips away from the cutting edge. They are suitable for high-feed milling applications including face milling, slotting, ramping, helical interpolation, ramping and Z-level machining.

Other strategies for milling ISO-S materials depend on the specific operation, workpiece material, and machine at hand.

A conventional approach involves a 1-1 balance of axial and radial depth of cut and average feed rates. High-performance machining, carried out with specialised cutters such as Secoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s HPM line, utilises large axial depths of cut and full-width radial depths of cut to achieve large metal removal volumes.

High-speed machining is another alternative, where the cutter runs at fairly low radial depths of cut and large axial depths of cut. This approach permits use of higher cutting speeds to gain productivity. Effective implementation of the differing machining strategies depends on a combination of factors including the capabilities of the machine tool in use as well as the CNC system that will handle the large programs and files required to carry out the machining processes.

Titanium machining has its own set of specialised operating and tooling requirements. Use of moderate cutting speeds helps avoid generation of excessive heat that can promote chemical reactions between the tool and the workpiece.

Coolant should be applied whenever possible. Sharp cutting edges reduce cutting forces by facilitating shearing of chips from the work-piece. High-feed strategies apply here as well.

Conclusion Manufacturersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; goals for machining operations for ISO-S materials used in critical applications are top quality, reliable consistency, and productivity. As metal producers develop new alloys to meet increasingly demanding high-performance applications, cutting tool makers in turn create new cutting tool materials and strategies engineered to overcome the machining challenges of ISO-S materials and enable manufacturers to meet their machining goals. â&#x2DC;? > MORE@CLICK EM01729 | www.efficientmanufacturing.in

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T E S T & M E A S U R E M E N T | A P P L I C AT I O N

ELIMINATING MACHINE DOWNTIME An application story on the usage of Renishaw’s touch probe technologies

by Intoco that helps to reduce scrapping of components associated with manual setting and inspection The advanced manufacturing division of UK-based company Intoco (Independent Tool Consultants Ltd) is a showcase for precision subcontract engineering. Five-axis simultaneous machining centres and 3D solid modelling capabilities are supplemented by an unerring commitment to quality control, with three of the company’s high-specification CNC machine tools being fitted with touch probe technology from Renishaw.

Whilst efficient and economical productivity is a major factor behind the success of most sub-contract machine shops, quality is of paramount importance in a market place where “right-first-time”, with zero scrap allowance is critical. The target was to build measured accuracy into and during the manufacturing process. Machine shops that fit CNC machines with measurement probes quickly realise the benefits derived from automated tool setting, broken tool detection, component setting, in cycle gauging and first-off inspection. Intoco is a prime example of a subcontract manufacturer using the touch

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probe technologies available from Renishaw.

Originally serving the aluminium extrusion industry, the company has evolved to serve a variety of markets that demand high quality products, fast delivery times and price competitiveness. The company is particularly responsive to very short lead-times, partly because it has a special steels and alloys division, which means it has stocks of raw material on-site ready for component machining. “The fastest return on any investment that Intoco has made has been the Renishaw probing,” says Tony Preece, Managing Director, Intoco.

Rapid turnaround As with all manufacturing companies, time spent setting work piece positions and inspecting finished products manually could be better invested in machining. A probing system can eliminate costly machine downtime and the scrapping of components associated with manual setting and inspection.

EM | Jul 2015

A P P L I C AT I O N | T E S T & M E A S U R E M E N T

The advanced manufacturing division of UK-based company Intoco (Independent Tool Consultants Ltd) is a showcase for precision subcontract engineering

This was first appreciated at Intoco around seven years ago when the company invested in a Mazak Integrex e-1850V, a machine so large that it arrived in a kit form, in about 30 crates, and at the time the only one in the UK. It was fitted with a Renishaw RMP600 touch probe, a factor which opened the company’s eyes to the competitive gains on offer.

“Currently the metals extrusion industry commands 50% of our production capacity, but we also manufacture components for the oil and gas, green energy and pharmaceutical industries”, says Wayne Parkins, CNC Production Development Engineer, Intoco. “We purchased the Mazak Integrex e-1850V to machine very large critical components up to 2300 mm in diameter and 1500 mm in height, manufactured in Alloy C22, super duplex and high alloy pre-hardened tool steels. With our clients not allowing any possibility of weld repair, in the event of a mistake ‘right first time’ on one-off components is critical with no margin for error. This was the reason for the integration of the Renishaw inspection probing on our Mazak Integrex e-1850V,” he explains.

Intoco also machines 1500 mm diameter turbo fans on the same machine, where once again Inspection Plus is highly valuable. “We measure the fans using Inspection Plus and export the data to a suitable file, such as a Word document or an Excel spreadsheet. We can then present a document to the customer showing nominal size, check size and tolerance band,” says Parkins.

More investment

Recently, Intoco has added further Mazak multitasking machines to its production facility, including a Mazak Integrex e-650H, which machines components for extrusion presses, pharmaceutical and defence processes. A typical batch size at Intoco is one to four, with ten being the maximum. “Originally, the Mazak Integrex e-650H was delivered without a Renishaw touch probe. However, we required it to machine components up to 1000 mm diameter, which were difficult to measure with conventional inspection equipment. We then contracted Renishaw to fit a touch probe with a radio signal transmission to enable Intoco to inspect and record tight tolerance In-process measuring dimensions,” explained Parkins.

The Mazak INTEGREX e-1850V at Intoco also has Intoco, now, also has a smaller capacity Mazak Integrex Renishaw’s Inspection Plus software for machining centres e-420H, fitted with Renishaw touch probe technology and it installed. This is an integrated package of macro software, also uses a Renishaw MH20i manually adjustable probe with a which includes vector and angle measuring options, print TP20 touch trigger probe on its co-ordinate measuring options and an extended range of cycles, as well as an SPC machine. “The biggest challenge for us is the demand for very cycle, one-touch or two-touch probing options, tool offset fast and critically urgent delivery of components to our clients,” compensation by percentage of measured error, and data says Parkins. output.

He further concludes, “The elimination of the ‘off machine’ “Inspection Plus is great because you can do in-process inspection process and manual measuring, with the potential measuring and adjust tool sizes automatically with the for inaccuracy and misreading that can occur, coupled with the controller. So, from a measurement perspective, it takes a lot of length of time that this entails and the machine delays involved, problems away from the operators”, briefs Parkins. He further gives us an improved ‘floor-to-floor’ time together with printed adds, “We’ve got a CMM, which will accommodate 800 mm on accurate measurement data to pass to our clients.” ☐ the X-axis, but when we get components over that size, we Courtesy: Renishaw can’t measure them as accurately as we need to. The Renishaw > MORE@CLICK EM01730 | www.efficientmanufacturing.in probing system and software are essential.”

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DESIGN OF EXPERIMENTS | TECHNOLOGY

Managing structured experiments Experiments are defined as the systematic procedure carried out under controlled conditions in order to discover an unknown effect.

The article details such a structured and well-planned experiment, that is often used to evaluate which process inputs have a significant impact on the process output, and what the target level of those inputs should be to achieve a desired result (output).

Top and bottom line of the business can be impacted without additional investments if we understand the factors and their interactions and approach to control them effectively.

Industry under globalised scenario of production and product development faces a huge challenge due to many factors and their interactions, which results not only in loss of business but also damages the reputation and credibility. Time tested Design of Experiments (DoE) is a ‘cure for sure medicine’ for such chronic issues, and issues just cropping-up, which impact process & product quality and cost.

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L Ramanan Founder & CEO, RAISE Consultancy Services raise@lramanan.com

Understanding DoE Let’s understand the DoE from a simple example. Taste of the hot coffee is influenced by many factors and their combined effects called interactions. On these factors, some of them are controllable, which are known as special cause variations and some of them are uncontrollable called common cause variations. To delight the customer by delivering uniform taste of the coffee, all the time from the coffee vending machine, one has to do set of experiments with various controllable

EM | Jul 2015

DESIGN OF EXPERIMENTS | TECHNOLOGY

DoE in achieving optimum tool life in manufacturing process

factors and optimise them. The structured approach towards this exercise is called DoE. DoE exercise involves conducting experiments with various levels for each of the factors to arrive at the best output of the process and then optimise them.

DoE in turning operation

Tool life in manufacturing industry is a predominant factor to minimise the tool change intervals, tool setting time, etc which has a direct influence in the process quality of turned component and its surface finish as in this example. The tool A brief on DoE wear is influenced by the factors like cutting speed (100 to 200 DoE as a concept was developed by Dr RA Fisher in 1920s. m/min), feed rate (0.06 to 0.14 mm/rev) and depth of cut Following this, various methods and approaches were developed (0.2 to 0.4 mm). over time by various scientists and statisticians with the The first set of experiments were conducted for dry turning objective of reduced number of experiments with a fraction of and with controllable factors using the full factorial DoE initial experiments proposed by Dr Fisher. Fractional Factorial approach and without considering un-controllable factors.

DoE, Placket Burman, Orthogonal Array, etc are some of the Without DoE, it would not have been possible to set the important approaches of DoE with reduced number of parameter values, thus, resulting in larger tool wear and hence experiments. Taguchi method of inner and outer array is a the loss of productivity in this example studied. popular method for involving noise factors into the experiment Taguchi method utilises an approach to consider the effect while studying the output response. Each one of the reduced of noise factors, by including the noise factors in a special form experiments with DoE has its merits and demerits; the of orthogonal array called outer array. Three uncontrollable experimenter has to be completely aware of the chosen approach factors â&#x20AC;&#x201C; environmental temperature (30 to 400oC), hardness and it is advisable to seek the involvement and guidance of of material (200 to 400) turned and tool vibrations (300 to 360) were considered, apart from the controllable parameters, subject matter experts in DoE and robust design.

Any experiment is a costly affair as it involves time, energy, as explained earlier in the second set of experiments, to find resources and effort. Hence, before conducting an experiment out the minimum tool wear and the corresponding or DoE, one has to be completely clear about the goal of settings required in controllable parameters. From the DoE, the experiment and the factors involved. As number of factors it has been found that at the settings of speed at 100 m/min, and levels (min/max or LSL/USL) increases, the number of feed rate at 0.1 mm/rev and with depth of cut of 0.3 mm, experiments gets increased, therefore it is strongly one can achieve minimum tool wear rate and hence larger recommended for a DoE planning, before venturing into productivity by accounting the uncontrollable parameters on experiments. Major steps involved in DoE and the objective which experimenter do not have a control in regular manufacturing environment. accomplished in each steps is as seen in figure.

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EM | Jul 2015

TECHNOLOGY | DESIGN OF EXPERIMENTS

DoE in plastic component manufacturing

Summary

Let’s consider an example related to plastic component manufacturing where usually ‘shrinkage’ is the defect.

In the absence of DoE, usually shrinkage effects are always attempted to be addressed with tool & die correction. In this example, various factors that could influence the shrinkage have been identified with their respective variation/range for each factor. As number of factors is more, full factorial DoE is impossible as it costs money & time hence fractional factorial DoE was adopted. This approach helped in achieving 100% shrinkage defect free component without making tool & die corrections, by controlling only the mould temperature & booster pressure at their minimum level, while holding pressure at its maximum level.

DoE is a structured approach and is applicable in design to manufacturing, process parameters to product functional settings, etc to arrive at best result. As detailed earlier, as the factor increase, the number of experiments phenomenally increases. Hence, one has to choose appropriate DoE approaches/models to perform the experiments in the given time. It requires careful planning and execution for the desired results. It is highly a useful tool in taking informed decisions from manufacturing to management issues. One can choose to take a decision on choosing which vendor shall be beneficial based on cost and performance and which shall be of immense help in cost-benefit scenarios. ☐ > MORE@CLICK EM01731 | www.efficientmanufacturing.in

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M A N U FA C T U R I N G I T | A P P L I C AT I O N

Future of predictive automotive launch Implementing a collaborative approach that integrates engineering and manufacturing in the development of the automotive launch process is a growing trend towards executing global car programs across the world with maximum efficiency and achievement of first-time quality goals

In the automotive industry, there is a growing trend towards an increasing number of product launches on a global scale.

Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are trying to increase their market share in new regions, and they are looking toward regional production to support this goal. That means that often times the same vehicles are being built in multiple production facilities. But thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s just the beginning of the challenges.

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Zhao Jizheng Marketing Manager â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Asia Pacific Siemens PLM Software

Integrating engineering & manufacturing In Asia, automakers are under pressure to provide a greater variety of personalised options than ever before. They have to reduce costs to compete in global markets, while accommodating an increasing number of process variations to meet the demands from more consumers. As a result, automotive OEMs face continual pressure to squeeze more time out of schedules

EM | Jul 2015

A P P L I C AT I O N | M A N U FA C T U R I N G I T

The predictive launch approach gives automakers greater confidence that their final assembly processes will meet delivery expectations, first time quality goals and program profitability targets

that have contracted significantly during the past decade.

Toyota raised a question mark on quality control that is often To meet these challenges, automakers in Asia need to perceived to have fallen short while meeting international adopt new manufacturing strategies that will allow them to standards of safety and technological advancement. quickly plan and design new processes; accurately assess the A framework to predict and eliminate these errors before impact of changes; rapidly deploy best practices across global production and full visibility to teams sitting across different operations and better predict the timing, cost and quality of geographical locations to access and edit the design data can every program launch. Additionally, they must deliver more help avoid such recalls. environmentally-friendly vehicles and build them with more energy-efficient processes.

Predictive launches to manage growing To facilitate these strategies, many leading automakers complexity are implementing a collaborative approach that integrates A successful launch is measured not only by the execution engineering and manufacturing in the development of the launch process. This approach allows for early excellence of the entire manufacturing process, but also the access to product engineering data so that manufacturing cost and time it took to develop and build it. To be competitive, operations work in parallel and processes can be planned, automakers must master the transition from mass production optimised and validated concurrently with design. An to mass customisation, while fulfilling a variety of local integrated approach increases the efficiency of deploying a regulations and consistently meeting consumer demand. New modular platform that allows for a more predictable launch materials and coating technologies create design changes that operation, and provides management with clear visibility into can have a significant impact on manufacturability, but can be program performance. This predictive launch approach gives easily missed without an integrated platform for collaboration.

In 2010, Swedish-based Volvo Car Corporation (Volvo automakers greater confidence that their powertrain, body-in-white (BIW), stamping and final assembly processes Cars) was acquired by Zhejiang Geely Holdings Group of will meet delivery expectations, first-time quality goals and China with the aim to establish China as the company’s second biggest market, after the US. As a result, Volvo Cars planned program profitability targets.

As Asia continues to be the growth engine for the automotive for new plants in China and major investments to contribute industry with China leaping to number one back in 2009, to the development of new global car models. To achieve that, McKinsey & Company projected that the next 7 years will be the company needed to increase its production line flexibility profitable for the industry in Asia with emerging markets to support multiple car models and change its engineering driving the majority of gains. For these predictions to come processes to support operations as a wholly independent true, local automakers need to build a higher impression in organisation. Through the adoption of mixed-model production scenarios and the utilisation of manufacturing both “Brand” and “Quality” to market.

Japan and Korea automakers have long been seen on the process management to manage and utilise process variants same pedestal as industry leaders the US and Europe. With and changes, Volvo was able to enhance collaboration with globalisation, new technology and local market requirements manufacturing system suppliers, increase engineering are now their key challenges to keep up with the quality productivity, and significantly reduced time needed to generate expected of them. Examples like the Takata recall hurting shop floor documentation.

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M A N U FA C T U R I N G I T | A P P L I C AT I O N

to rapidly design, re-use and validate manufacturing processes.

Getting all the parameters to the precise required point through trial and error on a virtual platform before implementation has proven critical to the success of automotive OEMs. With the help of integrated manufacturing, companies can optimise the product launch. The predictive launch platform is the catalyst in aiding todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s digitalised world of process management for automakers to compete successfully in the marketplace.

Automotive OEMs must operate effectively and efficiently in this manufacturing and production environment while managing the increase in product complexity across the globe.

Enhanced connectedness for optimised launch frameworks Integrated manufacturing helps automakers execute global car programs across the world with maximum efficiency and achieve first-time quality goals. To ensure automakers realise more predictive launches on a global basis, they must establish a collaborative development of manufacturing systems. This includes having a managed environment for early access to product engineering data during manufacturing system

development, an integrated validation of manufacturing to optimise process productivity and efficiency, a fast and efficient process development and predictable program performance and profitability. Leading carmakers like BMW are already executing practices that employ various cutting edge industrial connectivity tools to achieve better results. They are using predictive analytics for production as well as repair processes.

Predictive modelling and analytics have the potential to turn traditional manufacturing frameworks on their heads.

Employing technologies like Big Data to mine crucial and timely data to preempt and adjust the design parameters accordingly to swiftly changing specifications and leveraging the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) to make sure that each part of the process can talk to the other parts is set to usher in a new phase of launch practices for a number of verticals. The automotive industry stands to gain the most from predictive analytics and companies engaging these easily customisable robust solutions for their launch programs will steer ahead of the competition by achieving unprecedented control and speed for design and production processes while staying highly energy-efficient. â&#x2DC;? > MORE@CLICK EM01732 | www.efficientmanufacturing.in

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EM | Jul 2015

S P E C I A L F E AT U R E | E D U C AT I O N & T R A I N I N G

Imparting education on industry standards Currently, educational institutes need to make changes in their teaching curriculum, corresponding to industry expectations.

They need to build infrastructure and introduce students to current technologies. The article highlights the application benefits of such technologies, thus, making them at par with global standards According to recent research, India has amongst the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s highest numbers of engineers graduating every year. Some studies also suggest that out of this huge pool of job contenders, less than 25% are actually employable. It is time to introspect the reasons responsible for such depleting and unimpressive ratio of graduates to employable talent. It is also time to retrospect and comprehend the reasons as to what could the educational institutes or engineering graduates at their personal level could have done differently to have become the preferred choice to be considered for a role in the companies?

The answers to both these questions is training, including knowledge upgradation and imparting education at

EM | Jul 2015

Prashant Deshpande Sr Business Manager DesignTech CAD Academy

par with industry standards.

India is not far behind developed countries. Indigenous companies, or Indian MNCs, or foreign companies with design and manufacturing set-ups in India, are adopting technologies like 3D printing to match the global scale of engineering excellence. Companies from cross vertical domains such as automotive, aerospace and defence, heavy engineering, industrial machinery, power and energy, consumer goods and electronics, fashion and jewellery are all embracing the benefits that these technologies have to offer to augment their design efficiency, product quality, come up with more appealing product design aesthetics, and augment manufacturing output.

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E D U C AT I O N & T R A I N I N G | S P E C I A L F E AT U R E

Engineering students aspiring to make a career have to be well versed in advanced softwares such as PLM, 3D printing, and digital manufacturing solutions

Use of 3D printing The knowledge or information about these technologies that students are exposed to in most of our colleges is quite preliminary. These students without any dedicated or external training will not even be able to crack job interviews in the R&D departments of the companies, that house robust infrastructure of these advanced technologies.

Engineering students aspiring to make a career in product designing, simulation and analysis or in manufacturing need to be well versed in not just CAD/CAM/CAE technology, which is definitely and unarguably necessary, but also in more advanced software as well such as PLM, 3D printing, and digital manufacturing solutions.

3D printing has revolutionised the way products are built.

It makes for a perfect approach to conduct physical product design validation including visualisation, product functioning and performance by producing functional models, test the fit, form and ergonomics to enhance ease and quality of use and many more. It is also finding a place on the shop floors of the actual manufacturing plants as it can be used to produce parts/ models for end-use applications, making it ideal for small batch productions.

Digital manufacturing solutions PLM helps companies configure ideal workflows, streamline processes, optimise use of resources to set-up non-iterative, lean and agile product design and manufacturing practices

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that enhance the overall efficiency and management of R&D departments, thereby, giving company more control over data and processes, while reducing wastage of money, man efforts, materials, machines and time.

Digital manufacturing solutions help companies create 3D simulations of plant layouts that can effectuate in building a plant that facilitates smooth, seamless and cohesive working environment to significantly improve production efficiencies.

It helps set-up non-interfering working communication between men and machines, facilitates assembly lines planning, robotics analysis, ergonomics simulation, which can aid companies build a safe, and seamless manufacturing set-up.

Need to upgrade skill-sets Students need to identify training institutes that can impart training on these solutions. Even working professionals, thinking of upgrading their skill sets to better their chances of breaking the shell of their redundant career growth can think of getting trained on these software tools. They need to understand the software holistically, its applications, the areas and fields of use, and returns that the companies can enjoy on their investment in this technology. An institute, which encourages this and imparts education on licensed software, is certified and recognised in the industry, understands engineering and has a proven record of handling complex engineering projects, which can aid them enrich students with the applications of these technologies in various fields through domain-specific insights.

EM | Jul 2015