VRO helps shop give one-day service

Modern Machine Shop, July, 1991

VRO Helps Shop Give One-Day Service

There are very few routine jobs at Dixie Iron Works, an Alice, Texas machine shop that has been serving the Southwest's oil-related industries for nearly sixty years. "When our customers--firms like Exxon, Texaco and Union Carbide--bring us a part to be repaired, it has to be done accurately and it has to be done fast," notes Dixie vice president and general manager Jim Brockman. "Fifty percent of our jobs are on an in-today-out-today basis and if it's not right when it goes out the door, it's going to come back."

Because of the delays often involved in machining with numerical control, Dixie typically relies on its manual machines for the quick turnaround, one-of-a-kind, or small-lot repair jobs that constitute the bulk of its business. It also depends heavily on the skill of its veteran machinists and their ability to work quickly and precisely from blueprints. So when Rex Supply, the machine tool distributor that Dixie works with, said it had a readout that would allow machinists to position faster and more efficiently, Mr. Brockman asked to take a look.

They showed him a Millvision readout from Acu-Rite Inc., One Precision Way, Mason Industrial Park, Jamestown, NY 14701. The demonstration convinced him to install one on the shop's boring mill. The results were better than Dixie had expected. "On our most difficult and complex jobs, the Millvision allows us to machine three to four times faster. And there's a payoff in terms of increased accuracy as well."

The Millvision readout is essentially a compact data processor that stores, manipulates, and displays critical information. The unit not only allows faster, more accurate positioning, but also frees mill operators from many of the time-consuming tasks that would otherwise contribute to machine idle time.

Its developers call it a vision readout, or VRO, because it is equipped with a seven-inch display screen that gives machine travel and position in up to four axis. This display capability, together with resident software designed specifically for milling operations, also allows the VRO to provide simultaneous absolute and incremental display, approaching zero warning, and error compensation.

The readout's memory accommodates multi-step programs and tool offsets as well as programmed subroutines that assist the operator with automatic calculation of bolt hole patterns and the location of midpoints.

The automatic bolt hole pattern feature is a valuable time-saver particularly in some of the larger jobs, says machinist Darwin Fuhrken. "For instance, I recently machined a series of manifolds, each of which had eight flanges, and each flange had a hole pattern that I had to drill. With the bolt hole feature, and the fact that the VRO lets you position faster and with more confidence, the job was done in a fraction of the time it would have taken without it."

Mr. Brockman sums it up this way: "The accuracy of our machines and the skill of our people are our two biggest assets. The VRO helps us make better use of both of them."

PHOTO : The vision readout on this boring mill helps Dixie Iron Works give its customers the fast turnaround on repair work that keeps oil field equipment in operation.