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Coming in a variety of different shapes, sizes, speeds, and other dimensions, Computerized Numerical Control machine tools are the workhorses of the precision engineering and manufacturing industry. These indispensable machines on your shop floor have a wide variety of uses – from mold and die to fabricating complex medical, automobile or aircraft parts, just to name a few.
Equipped with varying degrees of software and automation, they can help to significantly improve the efficiency of your machining processes and ultimately the quality of your parts.
The challenge, however, comes in selecting the right CNC machine tool for your company. With such a wide range of factors to consider, how do you narrow down to the most critical factors? Here’s a useful checklist for you to start with.
In the preliminary preparation work, it is necessary to clarify the process requirements of the machined parts and the production batches in order to determine the functions that the CNC lathe to be used should have. This is a prerequisite for choosing a suitable CNC lathe.The process requirements for typical parts mainly include the structural dimensions, processing range and accuracy requirements of the parts.
The first one is to select the control precision of the CNC lathe according to the accuracy requirement, that is, according to the dimensional accuracy, positioning accuracy and surface roughness of the workpiece.
The second is based on reliability, reliability is the guarantee to improve product quality and production efficiency. The reliability of CNC machine tools means that when the machine performs its function under specified conditions, it will run stably for a long time without failure. Even if the fault occurs, it can be recovered in a short time and put back into use. It is wise to choose a computerized numerical control machine that is well-structured, well-made, and mass-produced.
After that, you need to consider what the current machine set-up is like at your factory, and how much experience your engineers and operators have in using CNC machine tools.
If you already have existing CNC machines, you should evaluate if they are still appropriate for their manufacturing purposes, see where your current gaps are, assess your machine life span, and evaluate the cost effectiveness of replacing an existing machine with a newer higher performing one.
The expertise and proficiency of your CNC machine tool operators will also play a critical role. Generally speaking, more highly automated smart machines require less human intervention than simpler machine tools with limited functions.
When choosing a CNC machine, don't choose features that are not related to your needs, so as not to cause unnecessary waste.
When choosing the right machine tools, you need to also match your choice with the selection of the most practical CNC controls. This will not only depend on the levels of automation but include the number of axis to be controlled as well as the manual interventions needed during the production process.
You should go beyond choosing the nicest and biggest screen for your CNC control, and consider the following important factors: Reliability of the CNC controls；Effectiveness of the controls；Software stability
User friendliness – are you able to find operators for these controls?
