Comments Off on Lack of raw materials hurting CNC Machining
The lack of raw material has been hurting all industry and especially the CNC machining industry. Whether it’s a CNC Milling machine or a CNC lathe turning center or a CNC Rotary transfer, whatever can produce metal parts is not able to produce parts due to the sheer lack of raw materials.
This is an unprecedented time in the history of our country to where not only is there a lack of metals but also skilled labor. Any and all CNC shops are hurting due to this lack of material and people. Machines are sitting idle waiting on raw material. It just doesn’t seem as though the mills can make the metal fast enough.
The reason for these shortages all goes back to COVID and the shutdown of 2020. That small interruption caused an immediate drop in supply because mills, if they ran, produced at a reduced capacity. This is now causing monumental change in production, employee attendance and now prices. As this backup continues and labor is more scarce, labor costs are actually increasing. If it costs employers more to staff a machine then the cost of that widget will increase. If that widget goes into a panel of a vehicle then that panel will cost more and if the panel cost more then the vehicle will cost more. Now, consider this increase for more than just that one widget and instead every component on that vehicle. This cost is significantly different as compared to 1 year ago. Sure, our labor force is higher paid but everything also now costs more as well so are we really better off than before? This is yet to be determined.
Comments Off on Reuters article on lack of robotics in CNC Machine shops
An article from Reuters put out a study on from MIT. It shows that the overwhelming majority of small to medium sizes CNC Machine shops are not filled with robotics and automation.
As the data shows only 1 of 34 shops had brought in robots to automate processes and displace workers. This company happened to be purchased by a large investor but all of the others relied more on their people. Gent Machine is no exception and we rely on our skilled people. They make this place run and we are constantly in need of more skilled labor. As the need for skilled labor raises more awareness we hope to fill up many open positions.
Comments Off on Distinctions of Precision CNC Machining
There is machining and then there is precision CNC machining. Gent Machine is an ISO 9001:2015 – ANSI/ISO/ASQ Q9001-2015 and IAFT 16949:2016 certified producer of screw machine parts. Precision parts is what we do. The company has experienced employees handle all facets of precision machining in our Acme, Davenport, and Citizen CNC departments from prints to machine set-up to production and to quality. All the steps from idea to finished product take patience, persistence, and skill, to urge screw machines, mills, and our Citizen CNC machines to run smoothly and create parts that meet prints and quality specifications. With decades of experience, Gent Machine is laser focused on what distinguishes the company from its competitors in the machining industry.
1. Machining with White Glove Service
While an oxymoron with the thoughts of grease of a machine shop, this attribute sets Gent Machine apart. Fast and responsive communication with real people, from owners to the office staff, ensure customer information is not only heard timely, but acted upon quickly and efficiently. As suppliers to the automotive and aerospace industries, as well as the United States military, clear communication is essential and responsiveness is key.
2. Clean Factory
When Gent Machine made the decision to relocate to its new location, not one detail was spared. Nothing except an organized, state of the art facility is acceptable to serve the needs of Gent’s customers and employees. Rows of Davenport and Acme machines inhabit one third of the shop, while Swiss CNC and Hydromats take up another third of the shop. The floor scrubber is in almost constant use, ensuring floors are clean and safe to walk upon as machines hum. Customers and visitors arrive expecting to see grease and filth. Instead, visitors walk into a bright and open work area. All employees are expected to clean their areas before leaving for the day. Machinists are expected to mop their areas, and a clean shop is the responsibility of all employees.
3. Wealth of Machining Experience
The vision of the old guy back in the tool room with the ability to create any part for absolutely any need, blindfolded, is not far from the truth. Gent is lucky to have several seasoned employees. We have a competitive advantage having the expertise and problem-solving skills of experienced Davenport, Acme, and CNC employees on our roster alongside our younger employees. We continue to attract highly skilled individuals to meet the requirements of our customers’ projects. Gent has machinists with high levels of experience and who love getting their hands dirty – literally. We are fortunate that our employees’ talents and experience further our mission to produce high volume precision parts using our innovation and teamwork for partners who demand superior quality, machining expertise, and on time delivery. Machining is an industry where experience is highly prized and rewarded. Gent is proud of its family tradition of precision excellence and focuses on its competitive differentiators. A state of the art facility with knowledgeable and experienced employees, and a
commitment to keep clear lines of communication open within all facets of customers’ experience will continue to drive success for decades to come.
Comments Off on CNC Machining and Five-Star Service
Ease of doing business and exceptional customer service sets Gent Machine apart in the precision machining and CNC Machining industry. As with any industry, the level of service in machining is not equal across the board. Engineering and product design, creating blueprints, finding suppliers and partners, managing the supply chain, production, and staying within budget are part of all project management. Gent Machine is a perfect solution to precision production needs. We not only have experts in our Acme, Davenport, and Swiss CNC departments, we have excellent support staff in maintenance, quality, assembly, and the office. We value our customer relationships and communication. We manage the entire process of machining parts with attention to every detail. We do not take short cuts. What truly sets us apart from other shops is our deep commitment to our customers. Our quality and customer service are five-star. The recipe is simple:
We start at the top.Ownership and leadership understand that customers drive our business. Providing five-star customer service allows us to meet the machining needs of long-time customers. We are proud of fostering relationships with our clients over the last eight decades. Following our core values of Quality, Respect, Integrity, Teamwork, and Positivity keep us focused on our customers, our employees, and our products.
We hire and retain expert machinists and support staff. Many of our machinists, tool makers, and machine maintenance staff have over 25 years of experience. A few have over 40 years of experience. No problem is too difficult for our employees to tackle, whether navigating a tight tolerance, completing a complicated set up on our Swiss CNC machines, or rebuilding one of our spindle machines. Taking care of our machines and tools insures we can take care of our customers every need. Our detailed and experienced quality inspectors ensure all customer specifications are met.
Real people answer the phones. Not only do real people answer the phones, they are friendly and concerned about answering our customers questions.
The best equipment allows us to perform the best work for our customers. Five spindle, high volume Davenports allow us to make thousands of parts in a day. Our six spindle Acmes can handle larger diameters, up to 2”. Our Swiss CNC machines hold dimensions within tenths of a thousandth of an inch. Along with our Hwacheon Mill, and rotary transfer machines, Gent has a solution for your machining needs.
Quality is a way of life. Our customers include the automotive industry, military, medical applications, and industrial supply. Lives are on the line. Precision is mandatory.
Treating people well is part of our company’s roots. Customer service is an embedded part of our mid-west culture. Customer service is an embedded part of Gent Machine’s culture. Precision machining is complex and an intellectual challenge. Exceptional customer service is straightforward. Customer service centered around quality, integrity, teamwork, positivity, and respect is the roadmap we follow. There is no reason for any customer to accept subpar customer service. Our staff is available to deliver quality service and quality parts.
In December, the leadership team of Gent Machine, a CNC Machine shop, embarked on adopting a system of communication called EOS – the Entrepreneurial Operating System. This system allows the team to set time aside to work “on” the business vs the daily activities of working “in” the business.
Q. What is EOS?
A. EOS is a set of concepts and processes that help leaders communicate and work together to resolve issues. EOS focuses on six key components that are inherent in any business – Vision, Data, Process, Traction, People, and Issues. These components are the spokes of a wheel with our business in the center. There is nothing fancy about EOS. The largest value to EOS is keeping leadership focused on the priorities it sets.
Q. Why did Gent pick EOS?
A. Gent has plans for growth and improving many aspects of what we do every day – especially efficiencies. Managers solving problems walking by each other in the hall is not effective communication. Emails leave room for interpretation. EOS provides a very structured, direct, and no-nonsense approach of working through goals and issues that require attention and collaboration. The relationship Gent has with Cleveland’s MAGNET (The Manufacturing Advocacy and Growth Network) allows us to utilize experts to guide us through this process.
Q. How does EOS change the way leadership communicates?
A. Adam, Rich, Lisa (Operations), and Dawn (Quality), as well as Production meet weekly for an uninterrupted hour and a half to review data, evaluate progress on company-wide and individual goals (called Rocks), review major happenings, and focus on and resolve issues. We spend the majority of each meeting resolving issues that will remove frustrations and move the company forward. We wrap up meetings by assigning to dos that may result in tasks or outside meetings with employees and/or vendors.
The team also meets off site quarterly to review progress and set goals for the next quarter. Yearly goals are set at the end of Q4 in an off-site meeting as well.
Q. How does EOS affect me as an employee? What is right person right seat?
A. A key component of EOS is right person right seat. This is essentially looking at every employee in the company and saying are they the right person doing the right job? Do they represent our core values? Are they in the right role for them and for Gent?
At the beginning of working on EOS, this component was a major focus of the leadership team. We relied heavily on our facilitator to guide us through right person right seat exercises. We started by reaffirming our core values, mission statement, and vision statement. We evaluated every employee and how they are perceived to demonstrate our core values and whether or not they are in the right role at Gent. Our goals cannot be reached without a great team of people doing what they do best.
Q. What EXACTLY do you talk about during meetings?
A. Whatever is an issue/topic that helps the company to run efficiently. Topics run the gamut from a key employee leaving in which we need to figure out who will take over their responsibilities to parts out of spec and which employees need to be part of that discussion in a separate meeting. Perhaps an employee is struggling with a skill and requires additional training, or we are considering purchasing a new piece of equipment. Every week is different.
Q. Is EOS helping the leadership team communicate?
A. Yes! EOS consistently brings us back to the quarterly goals we set to help us meet our annual goals. No matter how busy a week may be, we all know we have 1 ½ hours a week to listen and be heard by other members of the team.
Comments Off on Assembly room demonstrates core values
Assembly and the core values
Gent Machine has assembly capability to add value for our customers. We assemble O-rings into parts, along with a ball and staking machine. Lastly, we assemble battery caps with the insertion of contacts and bumpers and the crimping of wires.
Gent Machine reviews our processes for improvements. Recently, this was completed for our battery cap assembly process. We used our cores values as part of the process.
For Quality and Integrity, an additional step was added prior to crimping on the wire. This allows for the review of the cap quality and the insertion of the contacts and bumpers. This also ensures that at final inspection, the parts
For Teamwork and Respect, the assembly team has worked together to learn the updated process as well as encouraging each other. This has allowed the trays produced to increase from 10 per week to 15 per week along with an additional 50 trays at the beginning of each month.
Lastly for Positivity, the entire team has brought out the positive attitude.
Comments Off on Screw Machines ramps up for a large volume contract
The Davenport multi spindle screw machine is the fastest screw machine on the market. Gent machine has 38 Davenport machines on the production floor with another four off-line. In the last month we set up a part for a customer to make Bases for a 9mm round (ammunition). The material is 7075 aluminum, and we are making a part every 1.4 seconds. By the end of May we expect to have four machines running this part producing about 1 million parts per month.
The tolerances on this base part are tight for a screw machine. The ID tolerance is .001”. Typically, this would be too tight but since this is aluminum and the diameter is small, we have been able to hold the .001” tolerance. It is also possible because this part is running on a recently rebuilt Davenport screw machine.
About three times a year we strip a Davenport screw machine down to the base. Every part is taken off the machine and the core is sent to Meagher Machine in Rochester NY. Meagher Machine bands and bores the machine, and a new head is placed into the machine. From there, the core with the new head is shipped back to Gent Machine. Our experienced rebuilding staff puts each spindle, shaft, slide and bearing back into the machine to ensure the screw machine is brought back to like new. Having rebuilt machines on our production floor ensures we can meet the required tolerances on customers prints.
Comments Off on CNC Hydromat Epic ready for production…again
After nearly 5 months of downtime our CNC Hydromat Epic is ready to cut chips again. The machine has spent the last 2 weeks being switched over from an aluminum fastener to a steel cam pin. The cam pin will be used in refrigerator door hinges.
The machine will be milling three flats on the part, a single flat on one end and two flats on the opposite end. The two flats will need to be parallel within .001″ of an inch of each other. To machine these flats, we needed to purchase an additional 2 axis flange so the unit could move in the Z, X and Y axes.
We also needed to purchase a special CNC gripper inverter, which is pictured below. This was needed instead of the standard inverter to ensure that the part will turn with precision and slide into the collet after one flat has already been milled on to the part. We are the first to use this new inverting technology in the states and are excited to see its results.
The next step, as mentioned above, is cutting chips and proving out each station. This is expected to be a 2 to 3 week process of making a part in each station, making adjustments and then moving on to the next station. This will be need to be done for all 16 stations and then we plan to be ready for production. This can’t happen soon enough as we have a 1,000,000 piece order waiting to be filled.
Comments Off on CNC Milling machine, not just a money maker
With the purchase of our first CNC milling machine, a Hwacheon Vesta 660, we expected to be producing parts to make money. However, just having the machine on our floor is opening up new opportunities for us. These opportunities may not always add to sales but more so decrease our costs to suppliers.
Take this cap for example. I know you can’t see the part but it is a cap for a battery case. We make about 15,000 caps per month for a customer. Each part needs to be anodized, but not completely. The part must only have the top or “cap” side of the part is anodized. The rest must remain bright. In order to do this, the bottom half of the part must be covered during the anodizing process.
To cover the thread portion of the part, the anodizer currently screws in hundreds of parts into a fixture. The fixture blocks the bottom half of the part from being anodized. They dip the fixture in to the anodizing bath and then unscrew the parts from the fixture and send to back to us. Naturally, the labor to screw in and unscrew each part is costly to the anodizer so we are billed for this time. Now that we have the CNC Milling machine we are able to produce our own fixture. Once this is done we will be able to screw in the parts to our fixture, send it the anodizer, who will just dip the fixture and then send back to us. We are removing their labor cost which will create a sizeable savings in the end.
Comments Off on CNC and screw machining still in need but dipping
As the calendar turned to 2021, it seemed like the year was going to start as strong as 2020 had ended. Sure, you hear about the slumping economy and high unemployment rates, but manufacturing in the US was/is strong. The needs for CNC machining and screw machine parts had been strong since the country “opened” back up in May 2020. This strength continued through the end of 2020 with a strong automotive market and very strong firearms and home improvement industries. Thankfully CNC machines can machine just about anything for these industries and screw machines have niche making basic fittings, bushings and other precision parts for these markets. Therefore, the future remained bright for us.
The strength continued into January 2021 but as we’ve entered into February the phones have gone a bit quiet. My inbox has slowed to an average of only 1 request for quote per day (down from the usual 2-3 per day average) and there are few calls for new work. Of course, hardly anyone calls these days. This is not a good sign but it’s also not a time to panic. Many times we see a simple dip and then back to business as usual a couple weeks later. However, with everything else hurting our country and the world is this s simple dip and then we’re back to normal. We hope so. My barometer for a true slump in work is a drop in quote requests for about a month and poor economic indicators. Well, we have poor economic indicators but our stock market is still climbing and our machines have work for 3-4 weeks. So, what can we expect in the next few weeks? The hope is for improvement and as stimulus money is distributed I believe we will see a slight uptick and then a plateau. Not strong but not recessionary. I am certainly not Notradamus but the facts are there so it’s my prediction.
