Rollomatic CNC Grinding Set-up Time Reduction

Overview

Niagara Cutter is a subsidiary of SECO Tools, one of the world’s largest providers of metal cutting tools. They are currently struggling with their set-up times on their Rollomatic machines. These machines are used to grind all the tooling they make, ranging from standard drills and taps to specialized tools. The set-up times can vary from the 41 Rollomatic machines due to their individual wear and tear, as well as the experience of the operators on the machines. This lack of consistency is causing a variation with the set-up times and is resulting in lost profits and scrap material. Data from the sponsor has been given to the team illustrating that 51% of set-up times are the company’s biggest issues that have been resulting in excess scrap as well as lost profits.

The main objective of the project is to reduce the set-up time of the Rollomatic machines by 25%. Reducing the set-up time will vastly reduce the amount of scrap material produced and will also increase the production of tooling by Niagara Cutter. The team’s approach to solve this problem was to utilize time-studies during site visits to observe the operators to understand what areas in their set-ups could be improved upon. Geometric analysis was used to determine how the grinding process can be changed if an error occurs. Time studies and geometric analysis allowed the team to best understand how wheel grinding works, as well as be able to determine the best method to reduce set-up times on the Rollomatic machines. The overall benefits of the project were to reduce the set-up time of end mills on the Rollomatic machines. This will also increase the production of end mills which in turn will create more profits for Niagara Cutter. The team’s deliverables for the project were to research why Niagara Cutter is struggling with their set-ups. From there, the team developed two iterations of prototypes to tackle the set-ups and reduce the set-up time. Finally, we produced a final prototype that will be utilized by Niagara Cutter on their Rollomatic machines. This final prototype was a standard operating procedure document to be used by operators to assist them in their set-up reduction while fine tuning radius adjustments.

Objectives

The overall project objective was to assist Niagara Cutter in reducing their set-up times by 25%. A reduction in their set-up times will increase the amount of tooling being produced and reduce the amount of scrap material. This in turn will increase Niagara Cutter’s profits by producing more products and save them money by reducing the amount of metal that they must scrap. Along with reducing the set-up times of the Rollomatic machines, another objective was to standardize the set-up process to improve the overall learnability of the process. Standardizing set-ups will allow for new operators to be onboarded more quickly and in turn decrease the overall set-up time for the machines. All these objectives combined will allow Niagara Cutter to increase their profitability and decrease the amount of scrap material wasted on poor set-ups.

Approach

The problem at hand is to reduce set up time and scrap for the Rollomatic machines at Niagara Cutter. The techniques that will be most useful in solving this problem are time studies, interviews with operators, site visits, and geometrical analysis. The team will utilize time studies to gain a better understanding of the flow of work for a potential machine set-up for a specified radius critical parts. Interviews with operators will highlight the work they do daily and what structure is currently in place for troubleshooting and working to have a correct piece produced earlier in the process. Also, there is a concern about turnover coming in the next 3-5 years, so these operator interviews will serve as a knowledge bank for the team to build from and incorporate into our work, so no information is lost in the transition. Site Visits are important for the team to understand the work being done, how the machines work, and see what problems show up that may not be documented in another place. Finally, geometrical analysis will be used to understand the ramifications of changing one grinding wheel to fix a part out of spec as this is the main route for correcting a piece that has errors.

Outcomes

Based on the results found, the team compiled a standard operating procedure for both experienced and inexperienced operators to have to assist them with their set-ups on radius critical end mills. This document contains flow charts and summaries depicting the different troubleshooting steps that may occur during a radius issue within a set-up on a Rollomatic machine. It also outlines hyperlinks to the original work instructions that were provided by Niagara Cutter if the operator wishes to obtain further information regarding the set-up. The SOP document also contains blank data correction sheets as well as blank note pages. These will be used by the operators to keep track of their adjustments and any other notes they may take during a set-up, so they have them accessible for future reference. Finally, the document has placeholders for any future plans to put in videos explaining how these troubleshooting steps work to contain a correct set-up faster.