Machining Into the Future

Tom Grasson, TMD: Looking over the past five years, what new customer demands have been placed on the machine tool industry?

Chris Taylor, Chiron: They haven't really changed over the past few years, they've just gotten more demanding. I think our customer demands, in the direction of service and post-sale support, has taken up a lot of our time in the last years. They are wanting a lot more support from machine tool builders, especially on the post-sale side. We are developing whole technologies for them, whole turn keys for them, not just a standard machine tool. They're looking for a lot more production support in the next few years.

Executives in the machine tool industry gathered for a roundtable discussion at this year's EMO Show.

Bruno Schmitter, Hydromat: What I've seen over the last five years is that a new relationship has developed between our customers and ourselves, the suppliers; it's more adversarial than ever. It's not the partnerships anymore that we are used to seeing, it's basically 'here is the purchase order, you'd better build it, you'd better build it on time, and you can't fail.'

Grasson: History tells us that the machine tool industry is cyclical. Will it always be feast or famine, or do you see this changing? Explain why or why not.

Dr. Mori, Mori Seiki: I hope that will change. By 2050, the human population is predicted to increase to 9 billion, and natural resources are limited. This means that the environmental issues for machine tool builders will require us all to be extremely precise. Another major factor is that people in China and India also want to raise theirquality of life, same as the Americans, or the Germans, or the Japanese, increasing the number of workpieces required for human beings. So, these two important, basic changes – the extreme precision and the increased number of workpieces – will give the industry more opportunities than there used to be.

What the future holds for the machine tool industry was the primary focus of ATI Stellram sponsored roundtable.

Dan Jenka, MAG: I agree with Dr. Mori. The cyclical nature of our business will probably never change. But, the magnitude as we look forward, we believe, will be far less than what we've experienced in the past. Certainly one driver is the globalization of the markets we serve, so I would echo, for the most, what Dr. Mori conveyed. I think one other point is that we see some industries that are being driven now by technology where the impact on the machine tool industry is felt in a positive manner with the application of What the future holds for the machine tool industry was the primary focus of ATI Stellram sponsored roundtable. new materials and new technologies. So the consumption is not necessarily driven by capacity, but by technology.

Olaf Tessarzyk, Index: I think that the overall machine tool consumption, globally, is not always that cyclical. It is cyclical in specific countries, but for a global machine tool company, the sales are steadily rising. The question 'How big are they rising?' is dependent on where your major production site is located, and on the market there. But we've seen globally, over the past few years, a continuous growth, and of course in local markets – like the U.S. unfortunately right now – we aren't seeing such a tremendous growth.

Grasson: What is the single most critical issue facing the machine tool industry today?

Scott Kowalski, Tornos: Machine capability has risen dramatically in the last ten years, so the consumption rate is on the decline due to the fact that you can create more with the equipment that you have. Your operators and your owners of this equipment are now getting better versed on what this equipment is fully capable of. So, to me it's an upside, because you want them to get the most out of the equipment they purchased. On the downside, the amount of equipment that is necessary to create the backlog or the workload that they have is going to be lower.

Participants voiced their opinions, concerns and predictions for the future of their industry.

Steve Lesnewich, Doosan: I agree. The demand is going away. We find that with manufacturing leaving the country, it has created a shortage that is a big problem for us. The other thing that is a big problem is the lack of skilled labor. It's not there, and trying to find it, trying to pick people up is very, very difficult.

Bob Murray, Haas Automation: Yeah, I tend to agree. In every market we're in, we see the same problem – lack of skilled labor. It could be in the U.S., it could be in Eastern Europe, it could be in China. Our machines are relatively simple to use, but I think they're still too complicated for the current workforce, and that's going to be the key – we have to make our machines easier to use.

Grasson: It has been said that machine tool customers do not fully understand the capabilities of the machines they purchase. Do you see this as a major problem? If so, what is being done to improve the situation?

Mori Seiki's CEO shares his insight during the roundtable discussion.

Harry Moser, GF Agie Charmilles (Mikron): I think the issue isn't just that customers don't understand their newly acquired machine, it's also that they didn't understand the machine they acquired five or ten years ago. We performed a survey based on help questions that our customers would call in with. We would ask them 'Who trained you?'. It turned out that about 40% of these operators had hand-me-down training. They had never been trained by the OEM; instead were trained by John, who trained Sue, who trained Phil. We estimate that with a one week operator training session taught by us, these companies would see at least a 10% productivity improvement.

Grasson: What effects will new, harder materials such as Ti5553 or composites such as TiGr ( titanium graphite combinations) have on the design of new machine tools?

Dr. Frank Brinken, StarragHeckert Holding: I think the move toward hard materials will provide the industry with two classes of machines. We will have the economy class, which the broad public is using. We will also have business class machines, which have additional features, additional stiffness. The difference in cycle time is enormous between these two classes of machines.

Guests listened intently to industry executives discuss a variety of topics concerning the future of machine tools.

Dr. Thorsten Schmidt, DMG: I do believe that special materials will require partially new technologies, or the integration of new technologies. The medical industry is of course an ideal platform for ceramics, quartz glass, aluminum oxides, and other really fancy materials. It's not only the question of are you able to machine it, but also a matter of the difficulty of not destroying the structure of the material.