Machine tool selection made simple

Automotive Manufacturing & Production, March, 1997 by Gary S. Vasilash

Say you're planning to buy some new equipment milling machines (CNC or not), machining centers, turning machines, grinders, electrical discharge machines, CNC punch presses, coordinate measuring machines, CNC boring machines . . . You get the picture. You need some new manufacturing equipment.

So the question is: How do you go about getting specifications and other information about the various types. And, just as critical, how do you find equipment vendors that you don't know about?

Certainly, one source of information (we hope) is the magazine that you are reading. There are editorial coverage and ads. Many of these come with Reader Service Card numbers. So you circle the numbers for the items of interest on the Reader Service Card, and mail it in. The result of using the Reader Service Card numbers - and we certainly urge you to do so, because by getting inquiries from prospects the advertisers feel better about supporting this magazine through advertising (which explains why you receive this for free) - will undoubtedly be literature from the companies in question about the items that you have marked.

You attend trade shows and allow some of the vendors to swipe your badge through a card reader, which allows them to send you some information after you have returned home (after all, who wants to heft a satchel of brochures if it can be avoided?).

And if you are at a larger company, chances are you have people calling on you on a regular basis. They come with brief cases stuffed full of information.

By now, several weeks have probably passed. And you hope that the people with the green eye-shades and sharp pencils haven't started reworking the numbers such that your appropriation has been, in part, appropriated by another department.

All this gathered - and you hope that you have a representative collection - you begin the real work.

Making a Matrix - Maybe. The next step is probably to try to develop some sort of matrix or spread sheet. This allows you to take a look at the various specifications for the various machines that you have obtained information about. It is, without question, quite a tedious task, one that may be further exacerbated by the incidents of discovering that you are missing data about a feature here or another one there. For example, say you are interested in a horizontal machining center that has at least 20-hp, a 10,000 rpm spindle with a 50-taper tool capacity, and 30-in. Z-travel. You also need a table of a particular size. It may be that as you create your spread sheet you discover that one brochure is lacking the table dimensions. Or that three of them provide information about additional tool capacity and the others don't, and you like the idea of having that possibility.

An Accurate Alternative. It's called the Machine Tool Selector. It is a CD-ROM based tool. It consists of approximately 5,000 machine tools. The information - and we're talking extensive information, obtained by surveys and call-backs - was obtained from more than 400 manufacturers from around the world. The Machine Tool Selector was developed by Gardner Publications (the publisher of Automotive Manufacturing & Production) and Findlay Publications, a British firm. This information will be further enhanced, as a German outfit, Konradin Publishers, is joining the initiative, and it is collecting data from a raft of German machine tool builders, including some specialty builders who might otherwise be overlooked.

Bottom line: The database has been amassed. It is simply a matter of popping the CD into your PC, and then start performing your search and selection in a fast, smooth, interactive process.

The Machine Tool Selector includes the types of machines noted above in the first sentence. So, in order to use the tool, it is simply a matter of indicating the type of machine of interest, such as the aforementioned CNC horizontal machining center. In order to zero-in more closely on what you are really interested in, there is a screen with a drawing of the machine tool type of interest. It includes data entry fields for specific characteristics (e.g., spindle speed; motor size). So, type in the numbers, then enter. The result is a list of specific machine models that meet those numbers. Then you can click on any of these machines and go even deeper in terms of information, getting a list of the machine's parameters. Also, the search provides contact information: the primary North American vendor, or original manufacturer if the machine isn't locally represented. In some cases, there are lists of vendors.

(Another search alternative: up to 30 specs can be entered for a search.)

Presently, about 35% of the manufacturers include pricing information, too.

Speaking of pricing: the Machine Tool Selector costs $475 for a one-year subscription. Subscription? Yes, actually, more than just the CD-ROM, three quarterly updates are part of the price. This means that as more information is collected and added or deleted to the main database, the CDs are changed. So you can be confident that the information for at least a year's time is solid.