“I try to increase our capability and productivity every year by adding new technology.
This year, I have invested over $900,000 in new equipment.
One piece is a 20,000 rpm, twin pallet vertical machining center with a fourth axis on each pallet. As far as I know, it is the only one configured that way in the country.
We also added a CNC water jet deburring machine. It is the first one in the United States, and I don’t know any job shop that is applying this technology in this manner.
I have nine full-time people who hand deburr under microscopes.
The first part that we processed across this machine took 2 hours to de-burr by hand.
We reduced 1 hours of that time to 17 min on the water jet.
I got that idea in 2006 at IMTS.
Improving your business with technology takes a different form for everyone, and there is no one thing that will magically solve your issues overnight.
Each of us has to find our own solution for our own circumstances, but, just as I got (an) idea… at an NTMA conference, your solution might come from someone else at a national conference.
The one thing that does apply to all of us is that if we fall too far behind the technology curve, we will be out of business. Do each of you have a technology plan for your business?”
Roy Sweatman, 2008 Chairman of the National Tooling & Machining Association and President of Southern Manufacturing Technologies Co. (www.smttampa.com), speaking at a recent monthly meeting of the Cleveland Chapter of the NTMA.
