Industry Insight
An Answer to Non-Stop Production
A high quality, efficient, and reliable screw CNC machine shop making two million parts per month, Swiss Productions implements two Productive Robotics OB7 cobots to operate their CNC mill machines, eliminating idle spindle time, maximizing production, and increasing productivity.
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rom a family-owned company that started in a 750-square-foot facility with five screw machines, Swiss Productions grew to what it is today – a high quality, precision, and reliable screw machine shop producing over two million parts per month to customers worldwide in the medical, electronics, aerospace, and government industries. Located in Ventura, California, Swiss Productions today has over 50 screw machines and 30 secondary machines and produces components ranging in size from 2.5 inches in diameter down to syringe tips measuring 0.019 inches in diameter. Meeting the demands of their customers nationally and internationally while also maintaining the utmost quality requires constant innovation, forward thinking, and finding creative solutions to challenges. So, when faced with the challenge of maximizing their machine output and employee productivity, they quickly began exploring new solutions.
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36 IMD AUGUST 2020
Minimizing Idle Spindle Time Swiss Productions faced a production issue on their CNC machines. Although they had the skilled operators to handle their machining, they were not maximizing their spindle time. One of their biggest challenges was keeping their Hass Mill machine running consistently. “The machine would only get 9 hours of production a day, and an employee would sit on the machine loading and unloading every 7-8 minutes, and take one hour worth of breaks a day,” explained Swiss Productions General Manager, Timo Lunceford. Production would also be interrupted if the machine operator lost focus while attending to other tasks. Swiss needed a way to keep their machines running 24 hours per day, generating more products while lights were out. Consequently, their machine operator was losing time to focus on other tasks while operating the machine.