Small machining centers come home

Modern Machine Shop, Oct, 1990 by Tom Beard

Small Machining Centers Come Home

If you thought American builders were all but gone from the small machining center market, look again. Fielding some old names, and some new, the Yanks are on the rise again.

Five years ago, the U.S.-built small machining center appeared to be approaching extinction. Three years ago, it officially became an endangered species with the enactment of VRA (Voluntary Restraint Agreement) restrictions that limit the presence of key competitor nations in this market. All in all, things were looking pretty bleak for the home team.

But these days, things are indeed changing. Some old names you may have thought were going or gone (at least from this product category) are back with highly competitive new products. And some new names have come on the scene that may well become industry fixtures over the next decade.

Before taking a closer look at some of these builders, we should take a moment to define what "small" and "American" mean within the context of this story. For small, think relatively inexpensive. We're talking machines in the $45,000-to-$80,000 price range. For the moment, everyone seems to be concentrating on vertical machines, but that too may change in the near future.

As for American, well, that's a stickier distinction. If 100 percent is your criterion--from iron to servos to control components--probably no one qualifies. Of course, virtually all offshore builders would have difficulty living up to an equivalent standard on their own turf. So for our purposes, American means companies headquartered in the U.S. that have exercised fundamental control over the development and manufacture of their machining centers. (Our apologies to the several multinational builders who rightfully claim a major commitment to manufacturing their machine tools on American soil.) So, each company we'll look at is American in terms of its ownership, self-image and outlook.

Is this re-emergence the result of bravado from a few courageous companies, naturally changing market conditions, or outright market protection? The easy reply would be, a little bit of each, but that doesn't adequately answer the question. Most of the builders we spoke to will admit that VRAs do help their business--price cutting is less prevalent, and late-year business is better as imports reach their limits. At the same time, however, most contend that VRAs played no role in their decisions to participate in this market. Certainly, no one is counting on the restrictions being around for an extended length of time.

The machining center market does seem to be a somewhat less perilous place these days. Exchange rates have settled down to a reasonable level, at least from an American point of view. And the advantage many offshore builders once had in abundant, low-cost labor has been mitigated largely by their own nations' economic successes.

A better explanation as to why the Americans are coming back may simply be because they can. The market for inexpensive machining centers is growing. They are being sold to everyone from the Fortune 500 to the smallest job shop. CNC is still vastly underutilized in this country, especially among smaller shops. So lots of companies are, or will soon be, looking for entry level machines. And increasingly, American companies are exhibiting a new-found confidence that they have the ability and the goods to satisfy that demand.

The Fortune 16,000

Cincinnati Milacron (Cincinnati, Ohio) is no stranger to the small-to-midsize manufacturer, but it has been a while since they've visited in a serious sort of way. Many a shop first learned about NC with Milacron's Cintimatic, a vertical machining center that was widely popular up into the 1970s. Since then, the builder has focused on developing higher-end machines and systems technology that has left their customer base skewed toward larger manufacturers with the resources to buy such equipment. But they expect to change all that with the Sabre-750, the first of a family of machines intended to be cost competitive on a worldwide basis. The machine, says a Milacron marketing executive, once again gives the company and its distributors a product for "the Fortune 16,000", that is, virtually any manufacturer who is seriously considering a machining center.

As interesting as the machine itself, is the process by which it was created. For some time, Milacron has been telling customers that they'd reduce cost if manufacturability was made a prime consideration in the design process. Two years ago, Milacron took their own advice and launched "Project Wolfpack". They assembled a product development team that included all the key organizational disciplines--design, manufacturing, marketing, and even accounting--and gave it the mission of coming up with a design that would be highly functional, yet easier to build. Rather than designing down from earlier, more expensive machines, the team started with a blank sheet of paper. And it worked. Compared to an earlier model of comparable functionality, they were able to achieve substantially lower manufacturing costs as well as a 64-percent reduction in hours required to build a machine. The Sabre, which sells in the $75,000 price range, is manufactured in Milacron's Birmingham, England plant.