Thinking BIG About CNC Machines

Whenever I personally meet with end users of CNC machines it’s always a fascinating experience. I get to learn “what’s on people’s minds”, and often there’s a familiar theme in the comments I hear. Sometimes I’m a bit surprised by these comments! This was the case at the recent “Morris Madness” event at the Okuma Technical Center at Morris Midwest in Chicago. The main focus of the show was aerospace machining. We had two guest speakers (Dr. Ed Arnheiter, Ph.D and Kris Norlander of K&S Quality Associates) talking about opportunities, challenges and requirements to be a player in the aerospace manufacturing industry. Okuma’s very own product specialists Bob Baldizzi and Kyle Klaver gave presentations about the role of advanced manufacturing in the aerospace supply chain. Over 200 guests had the opportunity to see tooling, accessories, software and automation from Partners in THINC and watch several machines featuring live cutting demos. The CNC machines that attracted the most interest from the crowd were a 5 axis MU-500V IIL cutting an impellor as well as the MULTUS B400II with a demo of a 6 blade turbine in the main spindle and a scaled down car wheel in the opposite spindle.

Myth-Busters at Morris Madness

It was a great event, and the visitors asked me lots of questions and were looking for advice. One of the interesting comments I heard was “I thought Okuma only makes BIG machines.” YES, we do offer some of the largest machining centers and multifunction lathes in the industry, but to say that we only make big CNC machines is definitely a myth. Okuma also makes compact machines, and rest assured, they may be smaller but they’re mighty too. We showed them an example: we had on the floor a GENOS M560-V with 4 axis rotary table that can be used in the “mom and pop” job shops that are so popular in the Chicago area. Our high performing twin spindle LT2000 EXII features 3 turrets, each capable of holding 16 tools, and YES! Okuma makes grinders: the GP-26T had a demo for the automotive industry.

A Broad Array of CNC Machine Tool Solutions

With the recently announced Digital Manufacturing and Design Innovation Institute (to be headquartered in Chicago) this region gets a chance to have an even more significant impact on high-tech manufacturing. The institute will combine public and private resources to foster manufacturing innovations and bring together companies, universities, nonprofits and research labs to develop technologies that can boost manufacturing. Being a technology-driven company, Okuma has a broad array of machine tool solutions that can support this work that is so important to the future of U.S. manufacturing.

For a long time now, we’ve supplied manufacturers with innovative, full-circle solutions for CNC machines, software and CNC controls – of all configurations and sizes. So the next time you hear Okuma, YES “think big”! But know that we can make big things happen no matter what size machine tool you need.

A BIG thank you to Morris Midwest for producing another fantastic event. We hope to see many of you at Morris Madness 2015! In the meantime, feel free to comment below and share your thoughts, contact us, or visit one of our showrooms.

Mark Hamielec is Applications Engineer, Okuma America Corporation.