Job shops ponder capital equipment purchases

Job shops take on a variety of low-volume, high-mix parts and need the equipment to be flexible and productive. Photo courtesy of Velocity Machining & Welding.

Sean MacPhee runs a pair of job shops in the Maritimes, and this past June he attended the FABTECH Canada show in Toronto to look for new equipment. As President of Velocity Machining & Welding, Dartmouth, and Techtronics Machine Works, Musquodoboit Harbour, both in Nova Scotia he likes to keep abreast of new technology.

MacPhee said he wants a new laser cutter to keep up with growing demand for cutting services and to expand his capabilities. While MacPhee eventually found something he liked at FABTECH, he admitted he hasn’t yet made the final decision of which brand he will purchase.

MacPhee’s journey underscores one of the most monumental choices facing job shop owners: when to buy new capital equipment and what equipment to purchase. If you own a small shop with a handful of employees and machines, a single purchasing decision can make the difference between profit and disaster.

His Techtronics shop offers manual and CNC machining, including five-axis machining, and manufactures high-precision components for various industries.

At Velocity the work varies.

“[We perform] CAD design; 3-D printing; laser engraving; waterjet cutting; CNC machining; manual machining; plate shearing; plate, tube, and pipe bending; section rolling; and all types of welding. Velocity serves forestry, mining, transportation, research and development, oil and gas exploration, chemical processing, and others,” said MacPhee.

Within the past year, MacPhee purchased a new press brake and three new welding machines all to keep up with a growing customer base and increasing requirements from long-time customers.

“We bought an Ermak hydraulic press brake, the welders were a Miller Dynasty 280 DX, a Miller Dynasty 210 DX, and a Miller Aluma Pro 352 MPa MIG. All of the newest equipment is being used for the fabrication of aluminum and stainless steel components,” said MacPhee.

When to buy

Paul Chissell, President of Edmonton-based Wynn Machine & Mfg., and Gerry Addley, Owner/President of Addley Precision, Midland, Ont., also operate job shops. Neither man purchased any capital equipment last year, though both are considering buying new in 2018.

Addley is looking at acquiring a CNC boring mill for doing precision weldments.

Wynn Machine uses a Yaskawa Motoman robotic system to tend two turning centres to help boost productivity. Photo courtesy of Wynn Machine & Mfg.

Wynn Machine primarily makes parts for the Alberta oil field sector. With the rollercoaster ride oil prices have taken over the past few years and controversy over pipelines, Chissell’s workload has decreased.

“In the last year, all our capital spending has been put on hold. We had machines idle. It didn’t make sense to purchase anything in the last little while,” said Chissell.

He’s optimistic, however, that the oil field industry is returning to life and that oil prices have stabilized for the time being.

With that in mind, Chissell said acquiring new capital equipment in 2018 is possible.

“The equipment is aging. You have to keep reinvesting to keep up with everyone else. You want to keep your fleet equipment as young as you can. New every year would be beautiful, but, of course, that never works. So I’m thinking in the next 12 months something might happen.”

So what equipment intrigues him?

“Eventually we’d like to get into some five-axis stuff. It just seems to be more common now,” he said.

Wynn Machine currently has 14 machine tools, including two mills and 12 turning centres.

For the past few years, Wynn Machine has utilized a robotic system from Yaskawa Motoman Canada to tend two turning centres. The robot loads and unloads the machines and has helped to boost productivity.

“In manufacturing, as the day wears on [workers] tend to slow down because they’re tired or they’re sore. With a robot, every day you know exactly how many parts you’re going to get and it’s easy. There’s no discrepancies,” he said.

Moving into 3-D

Some job shops have begun to include 3-D printers on their capital equipment wish lists.

“Our experience with 3-D printers has been favourable, but they are nowhere near being able to replace a skilled operator and a manual or CNC lathe or milling machine. We have a Stratasys and a Snapmaker 3-D printers that are both mainly used for prototypes and mould forms,” said MacPhee.

Addley Precision also uses 3-D printers.

“For prototyping they are great. It allows us to do numerous prototyping configurations very inexpensively,” said Addley.

While Wynn Machine doesn’t do any 3-D printing, Chissell noted that additive manufacturing (AM) technology seems to be evolving.

“I’m seen some samples of it. I’m quite amazed by what [3-D printers] can do. That seems to be a growing industry for sure,” said Chissell.

That said, he’s not planning on purchasing a 3-D printer any time soon.

“Most of the stuff we do uses high grades of steel. Tensile strength is an issue [with 3-D printed parts]. For some components, I guess it would make sense but it’s probably not for us right now,” said Chissell.

Smart networks

The much-hyped internet of things (IoT), which enables shops to set up in-house, online networks linking equipment with computers to remotely view and control production, isn’t exactly top of mind for these job shop owners, either.

“We don’t have [an IoT network] as of yet. All our machines are capable of it, it’s just we didn’t see a need for it. We don’t have any lights-out machining right now. If it ever came to that, then you would need some type of networking so you could do off-site monitoring,” said Chissell.

If the price was right, Chissell said he would consider establishing an IoT network at Wynn Machine.

“It’s possible, but I don’t know all the full advantages to be honest. We’re not there yet for that type of production,” he explained.

Job shop owners are more enthusiastic about traditional networking tools such as Direct Numerical Control (DNC), which has long been a manufacturing plant staple. DNC links CNC machines with computers for programming purposes but lacks the more advanced functions of the IoT.

“We used to use [DNC] years back when the machines themselves didn’t have enough memory inside because memory was expensive. You’d run a DNC [network] to an external computer with more memory to handle the computing and size of the programs,” said Chissell.

“Seventy-five per cent of our machine tools are CNC. We use DNC on larger programs that cannot be loaded conventionally. We use CAD and CAM extensively, as most of the industry does now,” said Addley.

MacPhee doesn’t use the internet of things or DNC for that matter, at either of his shops.

“We have many CNC machines, including turning centres, machining centres, a laser engraver, press brakes, and a waterjet cutter. None of them are hooked up to a DNC network. However, because of the low-volume, high-mix nature of the work we do, both Velocity and Techtronics also use manual lathes and milling machines,” he states.

Regardless of whether it’s a standard machine tool or an advanced 3-D metal printer, making the decision when to purchase new capital equipment, much less what kind of equipment to buy, involves a complex consideration of finances, demand, future plans, and present capabilities.

“Customer requirements and staying on top of the latest technologies have always been a great influence on our decisions about what equipment to purchase,” said MacPhee.

Addley bases his purchasing decisions on demand for services and available capital.

Of course, problems with existing capital equipment is a strong motivation for buying new.

“We track the number of hours on the machine. If a machine starts to be where the spindles [are falling] apart, and if you always have a service tech there, it’s probably a good time to replace it. Because when you’re repairing it, it’s not making you any money, it’s just costing you money. Some of the machines are old here but they still have life in them. Accuracy is another issue. If you have a machine that starts being inaccurate and giving you some surface finish problems, it’s time to get new equipment,” said Chissell.

Ideal shopping list

So what capital equipment would these shop owners purchase if price wasn’t a consideration?

“If the sky was the limit, I’d probably buy 5-axis machines with a 300-tool capacity where you could just load up the magazine and that’d be all your tools ready to go. That would be a dream of mine. So for me, it would be 5-axis machining centres,” said Chissell.

“We would purchase a laser cutter just like we are planning on doing. However, if money truly was no object, we would buy equipment and a building to open a school that would teach the machining trade. We would also purchase an advertising campaign to raise awareness about the machining trade so that we could get enough qualified people into the trade to fill our employment requirements,” added MacPhee.